Syftet med denna uppsats var att förstå den bild av medeltida män, kvinnor och könsförhållanden som förmedlas av läromedel i vår tids gymnasieutbildning. Till detta ändamål granskades tre historieläromedel genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Teman som gick att urskilja i läromedlens historieskrivning var bland annat att stora delar av texten var manligt kodad, att kvinnor tenderade att osynliggöras och beskrivas som passiva offer och att avsnitt om såväl kvinnor som könsförhållanden regelbundet placerades utanför narrativet. Efter en genusteoretisk analys drogs slutsatsen att genusskildringen till stor del kan förklaras av en inom historieskrivningen seglivad föreställning om att aktörer och händelser i den offentliga sfären är av större betydelse än dem i den privata sfären. En historiedidaktisk analys påvisade att de läromedelsförfattare som sökte skildra historien genom att kombinera ett flertal olika perspektiv kunde uppnå en mer balanserad skildring av medeltidens könsförhållanden, medan ett mer enspårigt narrativ korrelerade med det motsatta / The purpose of this essay was to understand the portrayal of medieval men, women and gender relations that is conveyed by teaching materials in the Swedish secondary education of today. For this purpose, three history teaching materials were examined through a qualitative content analysis. The themes that could be discerned were, among other things, that large parts of the text were male-coded, that women tended to be rendered invisible and described as passive victims, and that sections about both women and gender relations regularly were placed outside the narrative. After a gender-theoretical analysis, the conclusion was drawn that the depiction of gender largely can be explained by a conception within historiography that actors and events in the public sphere are of greater importance than those in the private sphere. A history-didactic analysis showed that the authors who tried to depict history by combining several different perspectives were able to achieve a more balanced depiction of medieval gender relations, while a more one-track narrative correlated with the opposite

This dissertation contends with the diverse corpus of Gothic ivory grooming implements carved in France in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Employing feminist, queer, posthumanist, and ecocritical methodologies, it explores these objects as tools in gender and identity formation. Attending to the complexity of medieval attitudes to grooming and women and to the polysemy of these objects’ iconographies, this dissertation argues for the inherent ambiguity of the bodies that constitute and were constituted by these tools. It participates in a broader project of revealing the inherent ambiguity of medieval gender and its deep enmeshment with the nonhuman animal world by presenting ivory beauty implements as nexuses of excess and resistance to feminine ideals. Calling attention to the body of the elephant as the source of the grooming tools’ materiality, its analysis demonstrates how the subjugation of the nonhuman animal reverberates through objects created to give order to human animal bodies, in particular the bestial female body. The material, iconographical, functional, and textual strands wound together in ivory grooming tools reveal the women of flesh and ivory to be far more multilayered and subversive, resourceful and complex, than scholarship has hitherto recognized. At once tools of subjugation and instruments to assert agency, in the hands of their users, ivory grooming tools become sites of identity expression and self-transformation.

Abailard expanded Anselm's sola ratione methodology, and in so doing he anticipated Renaissance humanism. His theory of abstraction justified the use of dialectic in theology, and was the basis for his entire theological system. He distinguished faith from mere belief by the application of dialectic, and created a theology which focused on the individual. The Renaissance humanists emphasized individual moral edification, which was evident in their interest in rhetoric. Abailard anticipated these rhetorical concerns, focusing on the individual's moral life rather than on metaphysical arguments. His logical treatises developed a theory of language as a mediator between reality and the conceptual order, and this argument was further developed in Sic et non. Sic et non was more than a collection of contradictions; it was a comprehensive theory of language as an inexact picture of reality, which forced the individual to reach his own understanding of scripture. Abailard's development of the power of reason anticipated developments in the Renaissance.

The Hundred Years War was a series of conflicts from 1337 to 1453 waged between the House of Plantagenet of England and the House of Valois of France. This thesis will analyze the affect that the Hundred Years War had on the societies of both England and France, and in doing so will show that the war was a catalyst for bringing England and France out of what is recognized as the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance and Early Modern Period. The thesis will do this by looking at three sections of English and French society: the royalty and nobility who commanded and who arguably started the war, the soldiers and mercenary companies who fought the war, and the non-combatants who either contributed to the war or were affected by it in positive or negative ways. The evolution in the power and role of the monarchs will be analyzed, while the nobility will be analyzed in their capacity as the leaders during the war and how their station in society was affected by the war. Analysis of those that served and fought in the war are of equal importance, as the Hundred Years War saw the rise of paid professional armies comprised mostly of the peasantry. Mercenary companies will also be looked at, especially in France where they contributed much to pillaging and acts of violence against the people. While the experiences of the combatants are important to understanding the history of the war, the experiences of those that did not directly engage in the war is important to understanding how the war affected society as a whole. Those peasants whose farms were destroyed by raiding armies, mercenaries, or bandits suffered greatly because of the war. Yet some, such as merchants, profited from the war and became greatly enriched. The church and its role in attempting to mediate and bring peace, while others of the cloth served as outlets of propaganda in support of their kingdom, will also be looked at in this thesis.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.