The use of herbs, spices, and other ingredients in the culinary recipes of late-medieval and Tudor England reflects the influence of ancient and medieval medical philosophy on the practices of the upper-class cook. Much of the literature treating the subject of diet in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England has concentrated upon the role that Church doctrine and seasonality played in determining food habits. Historians tend to ignore the very real influence that humoral doctrine and Galen’s theories of digestion had in determining what people ate. This work makes use of medical treatises, health manuals, culinary manuscripts, and printed cookbooks from the period to prove that cooks for the upper levels of English society were concerned about the effects that different foods had on health and that they prepared their meals with this information in mind. / Master of Arts

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This thesis presents an osteoarchaeological analysis of juvenile mortality profiles questioning the speculations made by some archaeologists that the under-representation of infants from Anglo-Saxon and medieval burial populations could be due to the practice of infanticide in England during these periods. Morphological and metrical age estimation and sex assessment methods are used to determine the age-at-death and sex of 1275 children from fifty-three Anglo-Saxon and medieval sites located in southern England. The age and sex distribution of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval children under six-years-old are then compared with age-specific United Nations demographic statistics see to whether or not a normative mortality profile is presented by the archaeological populations. This study identified an abnormal age-at-death distribution for the early Anglo-Saxon perinatal individuals. Excess female mortality was observed for the perinatal individuals from all three periods; early Anglo-Saxon, late Anglo-Saxon and medieval, and for the neonatal and infant individuals from the early Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. The results of this osteoarchaeological analysis are discussed in conjunction with a review of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval documentary evidence which examines the possible social and economic motives for infanticide. Whilst this analysis of the historical sources revealed laws and penitentiary warnings against the neglect and deliberate murder of infants, the late Anglo-Saxon and medieval documents provided little evidence to suggest the social devaluation of women that would support a hypothesis of preferential female infanticide. There are few surviving early Anglo-Saxon documents however, so the significance of the abnormal mortality profiles from this period is considered.

Difficult human childbirth is often explained to be the outcome of long term evolutionary hanges in the genus Homo resulting in an‘obstetrical dilemma,’defined as the compromise between the need for a large pelvis in birthing large brained babies and a narrow pelvis for the mechanics of bipedal locomotion (Washburn, 1960). The ‘obstetrical dilemma’ is argued to result in the risk of cephalopelvic disproportion and injury (Washburn, 1960). Current research challenges the premise of the obstetrical dilemma by considering the effects ecological factors have on the growth of the bony human pelvis (Wells et al., 2012; Wells, 2015, Stone, 2016; Wells, 2017). This thesis tests Wells et al.’s (2012) assertion that environmental factors, such as agricultural diets, compromise pelvic size and morphology and potentially affect human childbirth. The skeletal samples examined in this study are from medieval English populations with long established agricultural diets. Bony pelvic metrics analyzed are from the St. Mary Spital assemblage, and demographic and pathological data from St. Mary Spital were compared to the East Smithfield Black Death cemetery assemblage. The results show that there is some evidence for a relationship between chronic stress and compromised pelvic shape and size in both men and women, however the evidence is not conclusive that younger women with compromised pelvic dimensions were at an increased risk of obstructed labour and maternal mortality during childbirth. This suggests that childbirth was not likely a significantly elevated cause of death among younger women in medieval London as a result of cephalopelvic disproportion. The concept of a single obstetrical dilemma is flawed, as multiple obstetrical dilemmas other than cephalopelvic disproportion through pelvic capacity constrains are present, including ecological and nutritional stressors, childbirth practices and technologies, sanitation ractices, and social and gender inequality / Graduate

The present dissertation attempts to follow and analyze each and every individual stage of food provisioning of a late medieval monastic community. Chapter One is an introductory survey, describing the topic, its status quaestionis, problems and methodology. Chapter Two establishes the geography of crops in the rural hinterland of Norwich, with each manor specializing in different crop. A close analysis of the crop geography partially supports the Von Thünen thesis. Chapter Three looks at the agricultural trends of the demesnes. Roughly speaking, the period between c. 1290 and 1370 was a history of wheat’s expansion at the expense of rye, on the one hand, and legume shrinkage at the expense of grazing land. Chapter Four discusses annual grain acquisition, its components and disposal. It shows that about eighty per cent of the total supply derived from harvest, while the remainder came in form of tithes, grants and purchases. Chapter Five deals with the human and equine interaction. The bovine population was certainly dominant, but the draught horses easily outnumbered the oxen. Each year,the Priory authorities saved a great deal of money, because of (virtually) free customary carting service. Chapter Six explores the space for storing and processing of the annual grain supply. The five adjacent buildings, namely the Great Granary, brewery, bakery, mill and staples, allowed most effective cooperation between dozens of Priory labourers working in victual departments, on the one hand, and decreased transportation costs. Chapter Seven attempts to establish the relation between the Priory population, its annual grain supply and demand. Conversion of the grain into approximate calorific and financial equivalent reveals that the supply must have exceeded the demand. Chapter Eight is deals with the actual consumption of the grain supply. As far as Norwich monks are concerned, their annual bread and ale supply has certainly exceeded their normal requirements and there is no hint about selling the surplus. Joining the bread and ale accounts with those of the cellar, we arrive at astonishing calorific figures. Chapter Nine discusses the charity activities of Norwich Priory, particularly connected to the distribution of bread and ale among the needy. There were three distinctive groups: hermits, prisoners and paupers. According to almoner’s accounts, the Priory allocated generous sums of loaves and ale to the paupers.

The present dissertation attempts to follow and analyze each and every individual stage of food provisioning of a late medieval monastic community. Chapter One is an introductory survey, describing the topic, its status quaestionis, problems and methodology. Chapter Two establishes the geography of crops in the rural hinterland of Norwich, with each manor specializing in different crop. A close analysis of the crop geography partially supports the Von Thünen thesis. Chapter Three looks at the agricultural trends of the demesnes. Roughly speaking, the period between c. 1290 and 1370 was a history of wheat’s expansion at the expense of rye, on the one hand, and legume shrinkage at the expense of grazing land. Chapter Four discusses annual grain acquisition, its components and disposal. It shows that about eighty per cent of the total supply derived from harvest, while the remainder came in form of tithes, grants and purchases. Chapter Five deals with the human and equine interaction. The bovine population was certainly dominant, but the draught horses easily outnumbered the oxen. Each year,the Priory authorities saved a great deal of money, because of (virtually) free customary carting service. Chapter Six explores the space for storing and processing of the annual grain supply. The five adjacent buildings, namely the Great Granary, brewery, bakery, mill and staples, allowed most effective cooperation between dozens of Priory labourers working in victual departments, on the one hand, and decreased transportation costs. Chapter Seven attempts to establish the relation between the Priory population, its annual grain supply and demand. Conversion of the grain into approximate calorific and financial equivalent reveals that the supply must have exceeded the demand. Chapter Eight is deals with the actual consumption of the grain supply. As far as Norwich monks are concerned, their annual bread and ale supply has certainly exceeded their normal requirements and there is no hint about selling the surplus. Joining the bread and ale accounts with those of the cellar, we arrive at astonishing calorific figures. Chapter Nine discusses the charity activities of Norwich Priory, particularly connected to the distribution of bread and ale among the needy. There were three distinctive groups: hermits, prisoners and paupers. According to almoner’s accounts, the Priory allocated generous sums of loaves and ale to the paupers.

This dissertation is a comparative study of children who succeeded as kings of England, Scotland, France, and Germany as boys under the age of fifteen in the central Middle Ages. Children are often disregarded in the historical record, even those divinely-ordained as king. The research undertaken in this thesis aims to uncover a more human aspect to medieval kingship by combining social aspects of childhood and gender studies with a political and legal approach to the study of the nature of rulership and royal administrative practices. Part I provides vital context of how royal fathers prepared their underage sons for kingship. I argue for the importance of maternal involvement in association, demonstrate the significant benefits a comparative approach brings to our understanding of anticipatory actions, and reveal the impact which changes in the circumstances and documentation of royal death had on preparations for child kingship. In Part II, I focus on vice-regal guardianship to expose how structural legal, social, political, and cultural changes affected the provisions for a child king. The symbolic meaning of knighthood, which had been a clear rite of passage to adulthood in the eleventh century, later became a precursor to kingship. The child’s progression to maturity was increasingly directed by legalistic ideas. These developments meant that, by the first half of the thirteenth century, queen mothers faced greater challenges to their involvement in royal governance alongside their sons. Part III presents a challenge to the idea that periods of child kingship were necessarily more violent than when an adult came to the throne through an analysis of instances of child kidnap, maternal exclusion from guardianship and departure from the kingdom, dynastic challenge, and opportunistic violence. Children often appear as passive actors controlled by the adults around them but accepting this unquestioningly is too simplistic. Child kings could make an impact on the political landscape even if they could not do so alone. Through an innovative comparative analysis of a child’s preparation for rulership, the care of king and kingdom, and the vulnerabilities and challenges of child kingship, I demonstrate far greater political continuity across medieval monarchies than is usually appreciated. This constitutes a fresh and original contribution towards the study of medieval rulership in northwestern Europe.

abstract: This dissertation focuses on the connections between childbirth and spirituality in fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century England. It argues that scholastic interest in conception and procreation led to a proliferation of texts mentioning obstetrics and gynecology, and that this attention to women's medicine and birth spread from the universities to the laity. This dissertation contends that there is interdependence between spiritual and physical health in late medieval English religious culture, correlated with and perhaps caused by an increasing fascination with materialism and women's bodies in religious practices and rhetoric. The first chapter provides an analysis of birth in medical and pastoral texts. Pastoral works were heavily influenced by the ecclesiastical emphasis on baptism, as well as by scholastic medicine's simultaneous disdain for and reluctant integration of folk medicine. The second chapter examines birth descriptions in narratives of saints' miracles and collections of exempla; these representations of childbirth were used in religious rhetoric to teach, motivate, and dissuade audiences. The third chapter turns to the cycle play representations of the nativity as depicting the mysteries of human generation and divine incarnation for public consumption. The fourth chapter analyzes the abstract uses of childbirth in visionary and other religious texts, especially in descriptions of spiritual rebirth and the development of vice and virtue in individuals or institutions. By identifying their roles as analogous with the roles of midwives, visionaries authorized themselves as spiritual caretakers, vital for communal health and necessary for collective spiritual growth. These chapters outline a trajectory of increasing male access to the birthing chamber through textual descriptions and prescriptions about birth and midwifery. At the same time, religious texts acknowledged, sought to regulate, and sometimes even utilized the potential authority of mothers and midwives as physical and spiritual caretakers. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2014

This thesis presents an osteoarchaeological analysis of juvenile mortality profiles questioning the speculations made by some archaeologists that the under-representation of infants from Anglo-Saxon and medieval burial populations could be due to the practice of infanticide in England during these periods. Morphological and metrical age estimation and sex assessment methods are used to determine the age-at-death and sex of 1275 children from fifty-three Anglo-Saxon and medieval sites located in southern England. The age and sex distribution of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval children under six-years-old are then compared with age-specific United Nations demographic statistics see to whether or not a normative mortality profile is presented by the archaeological populations. This study identified an abnormal age-at-death distribution for the early Anglo-Saxon perinatal individuals. Excess female mortality was observed for the perinatal individuals from all three periods; early Anglo-Saxon, late Anglo-Saxon and medieval, and for the neonatal and infant individuals from the early Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. The results of this osteoarchaeological analysis are discussed in conjunction with a review of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval documentary evidence which examines the possible social and economic motives for infanticide. Whilst this analysis of the historical sources revealed laws and penitentiary warnings against the neglect and deliberate murder of infants, the late Anglo-Saxon and medieval documents provided little evidence to suggest the social devaluation of women that would support a hypothesis of preferential female infanticide. There are few surviving early Anglo-Saxon documents however, so the significance of the abnormal mortality profiles from this period is considered. / Arts and Humanities Research Council

Cette thèse de doctorat se fonde sur l'analyse d'un corpus de 157 recueils manuscrit s utilisés en France ou en Angleterre entre le XIIIe et le XVe siècle, et dont le contenu, majoritairement en français ou en anglais, est marqué par une certaine diversité. A travers l'analyse codicologique de la forme matériel le et du contenu de ces recueils, elle vise à comprendre leurs modes de composition et la diversité des intérêts des lecteurs dans le domaine vernaculaire. Une première partie méthodologique expose la méthode de constitution du corpus, le cadre de classement utilisé pour catégoriser les textes, et les différents types de recueil du point de vue matériel. Une typologie synthétique des recueils est ensuite proposée. Dans un deuxième temps est analysée la place de ces recueils dans la production manuscrite, puis les logiques à l'œuvre dans l' utilisation des livrets (unités codicologiques produites séparément ou ensemble) et des rajouts manuscrits pour leur composition. Les analyses de la troisième partie se concentrent sur les intérêts, les catégories culturelles et les pratiques d'écriture des lecteurs, tels que ces recueils les révèlent. Après avoir tenté une étude globale des intérêts des lecteurs en fonction de leur position sociale, on propose une analyse de la divergence des modes de réception del' histoire en France et en Angleterre . La dimension pragmatique des recueils anglais est ensuite étudiée dans son contexte social et historique, de même que les interactions entre le droit, la médecine et la culture vernaculaire. / This thesis studies a corpus of 157 manuscript miscellanies used in France and in England between the 13th and the 15th century, and which contents, mostly in French or in English, are somehow diverse. Through the codicological analysis of the material form and the contents ofthose miscellanies, this thesis aims at understanding their mode of composition and the diversity of the readers's interests in vernacular matters. The firsl part explains the way the manuscripts were selected, the categories used to classify their texts, and the different physical types of miscellanies. A comprehensive typology of those miscellanies is then proposed. The second part focuses on the importance of miscellanies in the global manuscript production , and on the logic of their composition through the use ofbooklets, tillers and notes. The third part of this thesis studies the interests, the cultural framework and the writing habits ofreaders as they are revealed in the corpus.First, their interests are tentative ly confronted to their social starus. Then, a comparison between the ways history was received in France and in England shows a divergence in this regard. The pragmatic habits and tastes ofEnglish readers is then studied in its social and historical context, as are the interactions between law, medicine and vemacular culture.