Scholars including Christine Fell, Pauline Stafford and Catherine Cubitt have tried to explain the status of women in Late Anglo-Saxon England in a variety of ways. Some, such as Fell, have framed the earlier Anglo-Saxon period as a golden Age which saw greater freedoms; others, like Stafford, Cubitt and Patricia Halpin, have argued for a more complicated reading, one that acknowledges the impact of the tenth-century monastic reform and the changes in types of religious life open to women. Occasionally studies draw on the art of the period to demonstrate their claims, but none foreground the visual evidence in the exploration of women's status in Late Anglo-Saxon England. Art historical studies, such as Catherine Karkov's examinations of Junius 11 and the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, which include discussion of the portrayal of women tend to examine the images in relation to various concepts ranging from the manuscript's audience to issues of female speech, as well as in isolation from the extant corpus of images of women known from Late Anglo-Saxon England. This study will focus on three distinct, yet related, case studies that typify the ways in which women are presented to different Late Anglo-Saxon audiences. These case studies emerge through a statistical analysis and survey of patterns of representation of over twenty illustrated manuscripts. The first focuses on the miniature of St Æthlthryth in the Benedictional of Æthelthryth, exploring how the image of Æthlthryth was utilised to communicate ideals, such as virginity, key to Æthelwold's view of reformed English monasticism. The second case study focuses on the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch and the ways in which women were utilised in demonstrating (un)righteous behaviours. The differences between the manuscripts while seeking to demonstrate how personifications, like the historical and biblical women of the first two case studies, can reveal the ways in which women were conceived in Late Anglo-Saxon society. Ultimately, this study will show that when women were portrayed in the art of the period, it is with specific ideals in mind that speak to acceptable behaviour, religious constructs, and the place and function of the woman in contemporary society.

A travers l’étude de l’œuvre du cinéaste Roman Karmen, nous souhaitons reconstituer un patrimoine et tenter d’en définir les enjeux autour de questions historiographiques. En effet, les images de l’opérateur soviétique n’ont pas seulement marqué l’histoire du XXème, elles ont en partie contribué à la construire en un objet unique. Les propriétés métonymiques de l’image (photographies et prises de vues) ont bouleversé notre perception en même temps qu’elles ont participé à la construction d’un récit historique général d’un nouvel ordre. Il s’agit d’un récit visuel complexe où se mêlent prises de vues sur le vif et mises en scène, motifs et emblèmes, personnages principaux, personnages secondaires et masses anonymes. Disséminées, ces prises de vues constituent le principal réservoir d’images dites d’archives dont se servent régulièrement les documentaristes contemporains pour faire « témoigner l’Histoire ». Retracer le parcours de Karmen permet de revenir aux sources de ces images, de comprendre leurs enjeux, leurs contextes de production et leurs rapports au sein d’une œuvre dont le récit se confond avec l’Histoire. Nous faisons ici l’hypothèse que ce récit constitué de prises de vues, d’actualités et de films documentaires est à l’origine « d’une vulgate soviétique de l’Histoire ». / With the study of Roman Karmen’s cinematographic work, we want to retrace a heritage and to identify its implications through an historiographical approach. Not only did the Soviet filmmaker’s images go down in history but they also contributed to shape the twentieth century into a single object. Indeed, the metonymic properties of Karmen’s shootings (cinematographic photography and live action) upset our perception and contributed to build an historical account that sustains a new order. It is a complex visual narrative bringing together live action and staging, subjects and emblems, main characters, secondary characters and anonymous masses. Disseminated, Roman Karmen’s work is the main reservoir of “archival images” often used by contemporary documentary filmmakers as a mean to present “first-hand History”. Following Roman Karmen’s artistic itinerary allows us to gain a better understanding of these images: their initial purposes, their making process, and their relationships in a work within which story merges with History. We assume that this narrative consisting of pictures, cinematic newsreels, and documentary films shaped the “Soviet vulgate of history”.