No description available.

No description available.

Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans and English / Opsomming In hierdie verhandeling word die ontologie van Eriugena in oënskou geneem, met spesifieke verwysing na sy negatiewe ontologie, oftewel sy opvatting van nie-syn. Ter inleiding word daar na die Latynse en Griekse agtergrond van sy ontologie verwys. Dit word opgevolg deur `n bespreking van die verskillende wyses van syn en nie-syn waarvan Eriugena in die Periphyseon gebruik maak. Klem word geplaas op sy negatiewe ontologie, wat meer gevorderd is as enigiets in die Westerse denke tot heelwat na sy leeftyd. Die historiese konteks van Eriugena se lewe en denke word geskets, met inbegrip van die invloede wat op hom ingewerk het en sy eie nawerking. Sy viervoudige verdeling van die werklikheid word vervolgens bespreek, met aanduiding hoedat die ganse werklikheid gesien kan word as `n wisselwerking tussen syn en nie-syn. `n Dinamiese ontologie word dus deur Eriugena voorgehou, eerder as die statiese ontologie wat kenmerkend van veel Judaïsties-Christelike denke is. Summary In this dissertation the ontology of Eriugena is reviewed, with specific reference to his negative ontology, in other words his concept of non-being. By way of introduction the Latin and Greek background of his ontology is pointed out. It is followed by a discussion of the various modes of being and non-being that Eriugena employs in the Periphyseon. Emphasis is placed on his negative ontology, which is more advanced than anything in Western thought until much later than his time. The historical context of Eriugena's life and thought is sketched, including the influences acting on him and the influence he exerted on others. His fourfold division of reality is then discussed, indicating how the whole of reality can be viewed as an interaction between being and non-being. Eriugena thus postulates a dynamic ontology, rather than the static ontology that is characteristic of much of Judaistic-Christian thought. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Religious Studies)

The Church was not the only progenitor and disseminator of ideas in medieval England, but it was the most pervasive. Relations between the ecclesiastical and lay realms are well documented at high social levels but become progressively obscure as one descends to the influence of the Church at large on society at large (and vice versa). The twelfth century was a time of great energy and renewal in the leadership and scholarship of the Church; comparable religious energy and renewal can be seen in late-medieval lay culture. The momentum was passed on in the thirteenth century, and pastoral care was the means of its transfer. The historical sources in this field tend to be either prescriptive, such as treatises on how to hear confessions, or descriptive, such as bishops’ registers. Prescription and description have generally been addressed separately. Likewise, the parish clergy and the friars are seldom studied together. These families of primary sources and secondary literature are brought together here to produce a more fully-rounded picture of pastoral care and church life. The Church was an inherently local institution, shaped by geography, personalities, social structures, and countless ad hoc solutions to local problems. Few studies of medieval English ecclesiastical history have fully accepted the considerable implications of this for pastoral care; close attention to local variation is a governing methodology of this thesis, which concludes with a series of local case studies of pastoral care in several dioceses, demonstrating not only the divergences between them but also the variations within them.

Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans and English / Opsomming In hierdie verhandeling word die ontologie van Eriugena in oënskou geneem, met spesifieke verwysing na sy negatiewe ontologie, oftewel sy opvatting van nie-syn. Ter inleiding word daar na die Latynse en Griekse agtergrond van sy ontologie verwys. Dit word opgevolg deur `n bespreking van die verskillende wyses van syn en nie-syn waarvan Eriugena in die Periphyseon gebruik maak. Klem word geplaas op sy negatiewe ontologie, wat meer gevorderd is as enigiets in die Westerse denke tot heelwat na sy leeftyd. Die historiese konteks van Eriugena se lewe en denke word geskets, met inbegrip van die invloede wat op hom ingewerk het en sy eie nawerking. Sy viervoudige verdeling van die werklikheid word vervolgens bespreek, met aanduiding hoedat die ganse werklikheid gesien kan word as `n wisselwerking tussen syn en nie-syn. `n Dinamiese ontologie word dus deur Eriugena voorgehou, eerder as die statiese ontologie wat kenmerkend van veel Judaïsties-Christelike denke is. Summary In this dissertation the ontology of Eriugena is reviewed, with specific reference to his negative ontology, in other words his concept of non-being. By way of introduction the Latin and Greek background of his ontology is pointed out. It is followed by a discussion of the various modes of being and non-being that Eriugena employs in the Periphyseon. Emphasis is placed on his negative ontology, which is more advanced than anything in Western thought until much later than his time. The historical context of Eriugena's life and thought is sketched, including the influences acting on him and the influence he exerted on others. His fourfold division of reality is then discussed, indicating how the whole of reality can be viewed as an interaction between being and non-being. Eriugena thus postulates a dynamic ontology, rather than the static ontology that is characteristic of much of Judaistic-Christian thought. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Religious Studies)

Factual accounts of revenants – the risen dead – seized the medieval imagination in the early eleventh century, and were recorded by serious historians and ecclesiastics as true. They then began to appear in secular imaginative literature and art, growing progressively more elaborate and frightening throughout the Middle Ages whilst retaining many of the religious overtones expressed overtly in the ecclesiastic tales. By the early modern and modern period, the tales were removed from any overt religious context and were told as purely imaginative literature. The academic half of this thesis explores the influence on the tales of the Christian doctrine of resurrection and the cult of the body of Christ and of the saints, then traces the migration of those tales into imaginative literature from the Middle Ages to the present. It identifies key motifs from the medieval chronicles and imaginative literature that continue to appear in modern stories, and explores the extent to which Christian eschatology altered perceptions of the dead and why, in an increasingly secular context, fascination with such tales continued into modern literature, what part fear of death played throughout this period, and how that fear was expressed, first in an ecclesiastical context, then in imaginative literature through horror stories. The creative half of my thesis is a literary fiction novel updating a medieval revenant tale, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, to twenty-first century New England.

The fight against heresy in medieval Europe has fascinated scholars for centuries. Innumerable books, movies, and even video games have been made about this struggle to combat heresy in the Middle Ages. Despite this apparent fascination with the subject, our understanding of medieval heretics and the inquisitors who prosecuted them remains murky. What we do know is that many medieval people lost their lives, while others were punished with imprisonment or excommunication. We also know that many others dedicated their lives to rooting out what they believed was the evil of heresy among the populace. And we know that fear of the spread of heresy was rampant within the later medieval Church. But what constituted heresy? Who were the people accused as heretics? And why were they accused? These are questions that are still debated and discussed within the scholarly community. As a contribution to the study of heresy, I have chosen to analyze one particular document and its author. This document, the Compilatio de Novu Spiritu, written by Albertus Magnus around 1273, consists of a list of ninety-seven heretical beliefs attributed to heretics in the Swabian Ries. It has been previously studied as marking the beginning of the "Free Spirit" heresy. However, many of the previous assumptions about the heresy of the Free Spirit have been questioned by more recent scholarship, including whether the sect existed at all. Instead, the heresy of the Free Spirit is now generally acknowledged to be closely related to medieval mysticism, and practiced by only a few individuals or possibly small groups. Therefore, the significance of the Compilatio has changed. I will re-examine the document, analyzing it not as a precursor to a later religious movement that preached that souls united with God can act with moral impunity, but as a window into the mind of its inquisitorial author, Albertus Magnus. The intent of this study is to better understand the thinking of the inquisitors who fought against heresy, focusing particularly on the Compilatio and its author, Albertus Magnus (c.1200 - 1280). The methodology of the study of heresy has elicited significant debate among historians, and these issues need to be addressed prior to an analysis of this document. Therefore, I will discuss the historiography of medieval heresy and address the major disagreements within the field in this introduction. In Chapter 1, I set forth as historical background the religious situation in medieval Europe at the time the Compilatio was written. The medieval Church spent considerable time and resources in the struggle against heresy, so I will also examine the Church's response to heresy in this chapter. In the second chapter, I address how Albertus responded to the statements enumerated in the document and in particular, the manner in which he cites early church heresies. Lastly, in the final chapter, I explore how Albertus Magnus used early church writers such as Augustine and Gregory for substantiation throughout the document. Specifically, I analyze how Augustine, Gregory, and Albertus treat the sin of pride.

Current scholarship on the devotional practices of late medieval England has emphasized two representations of Christ. The first, considered the dominant trend, is that of the suffering Christ; the second, a minor, but important trend particularly for female audiences, is the maternal Christ. Both are revealing of the nature of late medieval Christo-centric devotion. This project contributes to the understanding of late medieval Christocentric devotion in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by examining the representation of Christ in a martial role, as presented to clerical and lay audiences through the medium of popular sermons. It is a new contribution to the scholarship of late medieval devotion in its demonstration of a multifaceted Christ; the martial Christ echoes, but in many ways also contrasts, the images of the suffering and maternal Christ, in order to provide its audience with a more complex rendering of the human Christ, one which may have been more accessible to a lay populace seeking to form a relationship with him. This project also contributes to the growing field of sermon studies, intended to be comprehensive in nature. It uses a different approach to sermon studies, in that the entire corpus of nearly 4,500 sermons was reviewed. This was done in order to provide the most complete picture of the martial Christ. As a result, this project examines Christ in various martial roles, as well as his modelling of knighthood for kings, knights, preachers, and the laity. These representations were utilised by preachers to instruct their audiences in devotional practice, specifically forms of affective meditation; it was used as a didactic tool to teach the laity the complex doctrines of redemption and atonement; and finally, it was employed as a means to demonstrate the importance of right living in order to fulfill what Christ had promised on the cross, that is eternal salvation.

No description available.

No description available.