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Abstract Not Provided / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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This thesis aims to revise the established history of the passage of the Second Crusade through the Byzantine Empire and Anatolia in 1147. In particular, it seeks to readdress the ill-fated advance of the army nominally headed by King Conrad III Staufen of Germany towards Ikonion, the fledging Seljuk capital of RÅ«m. The work consists of four mutually supportive parts. Part I serves to introduce the thesis, the historiographical trends of the current scholarship, and the Byzantine notion of the Latin 'barbarian', a stock, literary representation of the non-Greek other which distorts the Greek textual evidence. Part II analyses the source portrayal of particular incidents as the army marched through the Byzantine Empire, provides analyses of those events based on new approaches to interpreting the sources and a consideration of the army's logistical arrangements, and argues that the traditional historiography has been and continues to be subject to textual misrepresentation. An understanding of the topology of Anatolia is required to appreciate why the army failed to reach Ikonion. Part III therefore consists of chapters devoted to the geography of Anatolia, the form, function and the population density of the typical twelfth-century town, the country's changeable medieval geopolitical landscape, and the settlement patterns and the way of life of western Anatolia's pastoral-nomadic warriors. Part IV revisits the Latin, Syriac and Greek sources which constitute the written history of the crusade in Anatolia, analyses the concerns of the army's executive decision makers within geopolitical, logistical, topographical and tactical frameworks, and offers a reconsideration of the established location of where the army ceased to advance on Ikonion, and a new version of the circumstances which led to the decision to retreat.

Historians have long struggled to conceptualise the Holy Roman Empire in the later Middle Ages. This thesis seeks to provide an interpretation of political life in the Empire which captures the structures and dynamics in evidence in the sources. It does so through a comparative study of the varied socio-political elites along the Upper Rhine between 1350 and 1500, with frequent reference to other regions of the Empire. The thesis is divided into three sections. Part I, consisting of four chapters, examines the shared and interconnective characteristics of several spheres of activity - the documentary, judicial, ritual, military, and administrative - in which various elites interacted through the same practices and conventions. Part II (five chapters) deals with the types of contractual association which emerged organically from these shared and interconnective structures and practices. It shows that these associations - leagues, alliances, judicial agreements, coinage unions, and others - were more common and more similar than typically assumed, that they regulated key judicial and military affairs, and that they reflected a shared ideology which emphasised peace-keeping and the common good within the Empire's framework. Part III of the thesis shows how the structures and dynamics explored in Parts I and II played out in specific situations by reference to three case studies in the 1370s-'80s, 1410s-'30s, and 1460s-'70s. All three demonstrate how the 'associative political culture' model can illuminate events which were previously considered to be moments of crisis or chaos, or the products of 'territorial' or 'constitutional' processes. The thesis concludes by arguing that, in light of this evidence, the Holy Roman Empire is best understood as a community of interdependent elites who interacted within a shared 'associative political culture'. This conclusion highlights the need for a new paradigm beyond those of the 'territory', the 'constitution', or the centralising 'state'.

The 'Romanization' of the African provinces of Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis was in fact a two-way process of exchange between Roman and African elements which resulted in a uniquely Romano-African civilization. The imperial cult highlights issues common to all Romanization processes, such as ruler-subject interaction and the role of local initiative in bringing about change, as well as unique issues such as the impact of politics on emperor-worship. The success of the imperial cult was hampered by the fact that only a select few - notably the wealthy local elite - derived direct benefit from the process, and by the fact that, because the pre-Roman Mauretaniae had no established ruler-cults, the imperial cult failed to assimilate with local tradition. As a result, the cult was unable either to make a decisive impact on the Romanization of the Mauretanians, or to achieve any real religious unity among them. / History / M.A. (Ancient History)

This study uses the ‘duchies' of Burgundy and Alemannia as case studies for an examination of the nature and causes of political change in the five decades after the death in 888 of the Emperor Charles the Fat ended the Carolingian monopoly on kingship in the Frankish realms. Existing narratives of this period posit discontinuity between the pre- and post-888 political worlds and define the status of dukes in opposition to royal power as the manifestation of either regional communal identity or self-centred aristocratic greed. Close examination of Burgundy and Alemannia indicates that such approaches are invalid, and that the fundaments of the Carolingian system persisted in the ideology and practice of politics after 888: a desire for the control over land and religious establishments, juxtaposed with a deep-seated belief in the centrality of the kingship to the political order. Dukedoms emerged in both regions not as a result of deep-rooted social forces but as short-term responses by magnates to crises at the centre. The perception that the dukedom was an essential form of political organization failed to take root in either territory prior to 940. Although the status of the dukedoms ultimately developed in different ways in the two kingdoms, it is suggested that the root causes of this are best sought in high politics itself.

The 'Romanization' of the African provinces of Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis was in fact a two-way process of exchange between Roman and African elements which resulted in a uniquely Romano-African civilization. The imperial cult highlights issues common to all Romanization processes, such as ruler-subject interaction and the role of local initiative in bringing about change, as well as unique issues such as the impact of politics on emperor-worship. The success of the imperial cult was hampered by the fact that only a select few - notably the wealthy local elite - derived direct benefit from the process, and by the fact that, because the pre-Roman Mauretaniae had no established ruler-cults, the imperial cult failed to assimilate with local tradition. As a result, the cult was unable either to make a decisive impact on the Romanization of the Mauretanians, or to achieve any real religious unity among them. / History / M.A. (Ancient History)