This dissertation examines Deccan India’s earliest surviving stone constructions, which were founded during the 6th through the 8th centuries CE and are known for their unparalleled formal eclecticism. Whereas past scholarship explains their heterogeneous formal character as an organic outcome of the Deccan’s “borderland” location between north India and south India, my study challenges the very conceptualization of the Deccan temple within a binary taxonomy that recognizes only northern and southern temple types. Rejecting the passivity implied by the borderland metaphor, I emphasize the role of human agents—particularly architects and makers—in establishing a dialectic between the north Indian and the south Indian architectural systems in the Deccan’s built worlds and built spaces. Secondly, by adopting the Deccan temple cluster as an analytical category in its own right, the present work contributes to the still developing field of landscape studies of the premodern Deccan. I read traditional art-historical evidence—the built environment, sculpture, and stone and copperplate inscriptions—alongside discursive treatments of landscape cultures and phenomenological and experiential perspectives. As a result, I am able to present hitherto unexamined aspects of the cluster’s spatial arrangement: the interrelationships between structures and the ways those relationships influence ritual and processional movements, as well as the symbolic, locative, and organizing role played by water bodies. The project therefore reimagines the Deccan’s sacred centers not as conglomerations of disjointed monuments but as integrated environments in which built structures interact with, and engage, natural elements, and vice versa.

This study uses the analysis of communication practices and strategies to argue for a new understanding of papal power in the years 1050 to 1250. Historians frequently argue that the high medieval papacy increased the scope and effectiveness of its authority through the creation, maintenance, and use of centralized governmental institutions. According to this view, legates, councils, delegated justice, legal codification, and a remarkable production of letters all allowed the bishops of Rome to reach into the far corners of Christendom to shape in profound ways the spiritual, political, and economic trajectories of medieval Europeans. But how effective were those institutions? To what degree was the papacy able to implement policy at the local, national, and international levels? The following study attempts to answer this question by considering the specific communicative mechanisms and strategies that the papacy employed in a variety of policy realms. Four case studies analyze the papacy’s efforts to: 1) resolve the York-Canterbury primacy dispute at the turn of the twelfth century; 2) mobilize political support during the papal schism of 1159; 3) reform the Church in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215; and 4) convene the Council of Rome to fight Emperor Frederick II in 1240. Each case reveals innovations in papal communication practices while simultaneously highlighting key limitations in the papacy’s ability to implement its will. The papacy, once a model of institutional centralization for medieval historians, suddenly appears much less centralized—and, in many cases, much less effective—of an institution than many scholars had led us to believe. This conclusion forces us to rethink what we know about one of the single most important institutions in European history.

This study foregrounds the problem of the center and periphery of Gothic architecture near Paris. Taking architectural citation as its interpretive framework, it focuses on a core group of rural parish churches situated in the land of the Paris cathedral chapter. It addresses the visual links between Notre-Dame of Paris and the village churches, the ways in which architectural citation was put into practice, and the institutional context that imbued the resemblances with meaning. It demonstrates that quoting the architecture of the cathedral of Paris was the exception, not the rule, in the villages of the cathedral chapter. When they occurred, the citations were mostly superficial, not structural, and resulted from contact between the community of secular canons installed at the cathedral and the administrators responsible for the village churches. The introduction sets the problem of architectural citation in the land of the Paris cathedral chapter against the backdrop of architectural citation in other contexts in medieval France: namely, Cluniac, Cistercian, and Capetian. Proceeding according to the Notre-Dame of Paris construction sequence, Part One reveals the architectural citations of the cathedral of Paris found in the chapter’s land: at Saint-Germain of Andrésy, Saint-Hermeland of Bagneux, Saint-Lubin of Châtenay, Saint-Christophe of Créteil, Saint-Germain of Itteville, Notre-Dame of Jouy, Saint-Mathurin of Larchant, Saint-Nicolas of Mézières, Notre-Dame of Rozay, Saint-Martin of Sucy, and Saint-Fortuné of Vernou. Part Two introduces the Paris cathedral chapter as an institution and a community of individual canons, maps the chapter’s rural property as it expanded from the ninth to the fourteenth century, articulates the language the chapter used to describe its villages and land, and explores the canons’ secular and sacred authority in its villages. Part Two concludes by bringing the institutional relationship to bear on the architectural evidence presented in Part One.

This study contributes to the ongoing debate about the existence and nature of the Cathar heresy in Languedoc in the long thirteenth century. Using testimony of accused heretics, it traces a network of fundraising, donations, testamentary bequests, deposit-holding, moneylending, and other types of financial transactions that evidences the existence of a discreet group of people traditionally called ‘Cathars’. This study demonstrates that, unlike many other medieval religious movements, this group did not practice voluntary poverty as part of a holy life. Since the Cathars are traditionally thought to be radical dualists who rejected the material world in all its forms, and because their clergy professed asceticism in other aspects of life, the failure to embrace holy poverty struck contemporary observers as hypocritical and self-serving. Many modern historians have agreed with this assessment, while others have argued that the Cathars did, in fact, embrace poverty. This study serves as a corrective to both points of view: the ‘Cathars’ in thirteenth-century Languedoc neither embraced poverty, nor cynically claimed to do so while disregarding their principles. Rather, repudiation of money was not part of their way of life. That the Cathars of Languedoc did not embrace apostolic poverty is not surprising when we consider that they were embedded in a local culture with strong moneylending traditions. These local practices did not conform to the norms of the Catholic church, rendering the region vulnerable to charges of usury as well as heresy. As part of its effort to standardize religious practice, in the thirteenth century the papacy waged an aggressive campaign against Cathar heresy. Uneasy with the rapid economic expansion of the high Middle Ages, it also stepped up attacks on usury, which was seen by some as a kind of heresy. Seeing that Cathars did not embrace holy poverty – and, in fact, participated in the economy – contemporary critics accused them of practicing usury and pursuing wealth. Languedoc, already deeply associated with Catharism, came under attack in the thirteenth century for its credit culture as well. Using case studies of early thirteenth-century Toulouse and late thirteenth-century Albi, this dissertation examines the association between heresy and usury and argues that attacks on their practitioners were intended to enforce conformity to orthodox norms and eradicate difference within Latin Christendom.

Cette thèse est la première étude approfondie et transversale sur le sattaka, un genre dramatique indien dont la particularité réside dans sa langue, le prâkrit. Le nom de ce genre remonte à Kohala (IIe-IVe siècles), mais est devenu connu grâce à la Karpuramanjari de Rajashekhara (IXe-Xe siècles, Kannauj) qui cite, pour la première fois, dans le prologue de cette pièce, sa définition. Selon celle-ci, il s’agit d’un genre apparenté à la natika, genre hybride du théâtre classique. Le prâkrit - terme générique de divers dialectes - s’est développé parallèlement au sanskrit, en tant que langue littéraire. Ses variétés régionales ont été attribuées aux divers personnages dans le théâtre classique pour indiquer leur statut social. Rajashekhara, rompant avec les règles plurilinguistiques du théâtre classique appliquées, entre autres, à la natika, a conçu son sattaka entièrement en prâkrit, en accord avec les règles sur les qualités phonétiques des langues littéraires dans l’art poétique indien. Son choix de langue a fait l’objet de nombreuses spéculations parmi les théoriciens et sa Karpuramanjari est devenue le standard pour les auteurs des sattaka tardifs. Dans cette thèse, après avoir retracé l’évolution de ce genre, nous analysons non seulement les diverses théories attestées au sujet de la langue et de la structure dramatique de la Karpuramanjari, mais également les pièces, afin d’élucider la question suivante : qu’est-ce que le sattaka ? Ce travail vise également à promouvoir les recherches connexes sur l’évolution de l’art dramatique durant le Moyen Âge, sur les auteurs, ainsi que leurs époques. Cette étude comporte de nombreuses citations des sattaka, dont nous donnons la première traduction française et, pour certains, la toute première traduction. / This thesis is the first in-depth and comprehensive study on Sattaka, an Indian dramatic genre whose characteristic lies in its language, the Prakrit. The name of this genre goes back to Kohala (2nd to 4th centuries), but it has become known by Rajashekhara’s Karpuramanjari (9th-10th centuries, Kannauj) who gives, for the first time, in the prologue of this play, its definition. According to this, it is a genre related to the Natika, a hybrid genre of classical theater. Prakrit - the generic term for various dialects – has developed in parallel with Sanskrit as a literary language. Its regional varieties have been attributed to various characters in classical theatre in order to indicate their social status. Rajashekhara, breaking with the multilingual rules of classical theater applied, inter alia, to the Natika, composed his Sattaka entirely in Prakrit, in accordance with the rules on phonetic qualities of literary languages in Indian poetics. His choice of language has been the matter of discussion among theoricians and his Karpuramanjari has become the standard for the later authors of Sattakas. In this thesis, after having traced the evolution of this genre, we analyze not only the various theories about the language and the dramatic structure of the Karpuramanjari, but also the plays themselves, in order to elucidate the following question: what is a Sattaka? This work also aims to promote related research works on the evolution of dramatic art during the Middle Ages, on the authors, as well as on their times. This study contains numerous citations of Sattakas, of which we give the first French translation and, for some of them, the very first one.

In the past historians have used the works of Honorius Augustodunensis to answer the question of who he was. In doing this the intellectual importance of his work has often been overlooked. Honorius was one of the most popular writers of the early twelfth century, and his most popular work was the Imago Mundi. The purpose of this study is to examine the work and its historical context and to furnish an English translation of the complete text. The present work looks at each book of the Imago Mundi and its sources to develop a concept of Honorius' writing style and his methods. It also examines twelfth-century manuscripts of the Imago Mundi and their houses of origin to construct a reason for the work's popularity, both in Honorius' own time and for centuries after.

Abstract not available

<p>This paper discusses runic inscriptions from the middle ages on Gotland and how they portray social structure. It focuses on three themes: (1) fixed time and space, (2) women and the nuclear family and (3) profession and social status/structure. It also discusses changes brought on by a more structured and established Christianity, as well as differences between medieval rune stones on Gotland and their predecessors Viking Age rune stones in the Mälar Valley.</p>

The Ars edendi Lectures are organized by the research programme of the same name based at Stockholm University and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Both the programme and the lectures focus on editorial method and theory as applied to dynamic textual traditions of medieval Latin and Greek works. In the Lecture Series, leading scholars are invited to share their expertise regarding textual criticism or, as we call it, ‘the art of editing’.In this second volume of lectures, Nicole Bériou o2ers an analysis of medieval Latin sermons, treating oral aspects of written texts and analyzing to what extent traces of a performance can be detected in written testimonies. Traces of orality in a written text also concern punctuation; here, Diether Reinsch and Börje Bydén o2er two diverging approaches on how to deal with medieval punctuation in Byzantine manuscripts, one supporting an adherence to the manuscript usage and the other advocating normalisation. Michael W. Herren discusses the particular challenges involved in editing Latin texts from the pre-Carolingian era. Elizabeth Je2reys describes the edition Michael Je2reys and she made of the letters of Iakovos Monachos, which are almost entirely made up of quotations, and their experiments with a special apparatus to account for variants in the cited texts. David d’Avray examines the theoretical underpinnings of Martin West’s proposed method for dealing with contaminated manuscripts, while Caroline Macé, Ilse de Vos and Koen Geuten compare the results of stemmatological and phylogenetic methods as applied to the transmission of a Byzantine anthology, the Florilegium Coislinianum. / Ars edendi

This paper discusses runic inscriptions from the middle ages on Gotland and how they portray social structure. It focuses on three themes: (1) fixed time and space, (2) women and the nuclear family and (3) profession and social status/structure. It also discusses changes brought on by a more structured and established Christianity, as well as differences between medieval rune stones on Gotland and their predecessors Viking Age rune stones in the Mälar Valley.