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1	Blood beliefs in early modern Europe Matteoni, Francesca January 2010 (has links) This thesis focuses on the significance of blood and the perception of the body in both learned and popular culture in order to investigate problems of identity and social exclusion in early modern Europe. Starting from the view of blood as a liminal matter, manifesting fertile, positive aspects in conjunction with dangerous, negative ones, I show how it was believed to attract supernatural forces within the natural world. It could empower or pollute, restore health or waste corporeal and spiritual existence. While this theme has been studied in a medieval religious context and by anthropologists, its relevance during the early modern period has not been explored. I argue that, considering the impact of the Reformation on people’s mentalities, studying the way in which ideas regarding blood and the body changed from late medieval times to the eighteenth century can provide new insights about patterns of social and religious tensions, such as the witch-trials and persecutions. In this regard the thesis engages with anthropological theories, comparing the dialectic between blood and body with that between identity and society, demonstrating that they both spread from the conflict of life with death, leading to the social embodiment or to the rejection of an individual. A comparative approach is also employed to analyze blood symbolism in Protestant and Catholic countries, and to discuss how beliefs were influenced by both cultural similarities and religious differences. Combining historical sources, such as witches’ confessions, with appropriate examples from anthropology I also examine a corpus of popular ideas, which resisted to theological and learned notions or slowly merged with them. Blood had different meanings for different sections of society, embodying both the physical struggle for life and the spiritual value of the Christian soul. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 develop the dualism of the fluid in late medieval and early modern ritual murder accusations against Jews, European witchcraft and supernatural beliefs and in the medical and philosophical knowledge, while chapters 5 and 6 focus on blood themes in Protestant England and in Counter-Reformation Italy. Through the examination of blood in these contexts I hope to demonstrate that contrasting feelings, fears and beliefs related to dangerous or extraordinary individuals, such as Jews, witches, and Catholic saints, but also superhuman beings such as fairies, vampires and werewolves, were rooted in the perception of the body as an unstable substance, that was at the base of ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes. 940
2	“She said she was called Theodore” : - A modality analysis of five transcendental saints in the 1260’s Legenda Aurea and 1430’s Gilte Legende Atterving, Emmy January 2017 (has links) This thesis explores modalities in two hagiographical collections from the late Middle Ages; the Legenda Aurea and the Gilte Legende by drawing inspiration from post-colonial hybridity theories.. It conducts a close textual analysis by studying the use of pronouns in five saints’ legends where female saints transcend traditional gender identities and become men, and focuses on how they transcend, live as men, and die. The study concludes that the use of pronouns is fluid in the Latin Legenda Aurea, while the Middle English Gilte Legende has more female pronouns and additions to the texts where the female identity of the saints is emphasised. This is interpreted as a sign of the feminisation of religious language in Europe during the late Middle Ages, and viewed parallel with the increase of holy women at that time. By doing this, it underlines the importance of new words and concepts when describing and understanding medieval views on gender. saint saints transvestites transvestism transvestite saint marina marina marinus saint eugenia eugenia eugene saint theodora theodora theodore saint margaret margaret pelagius margaret margaret pelagia pelagius pelagia saint pelagia jacopo de fazio jacobus de voragine jacopo da varazze compiler dominican Golden legend legenda aurea legenda sanctorum gilte legende confessor martyr virgin hagiographies hagiography biography England Middle English sweden monastery monk abbot social experimentation space feminisation of language jesus as mother saint bridget of sweden saint mary holy virgin saint catherine of siena le roman de silences silence caroline walker bynum sanctity transcendence homi bhabha post-colonial postcolonial loomba hybridity hybridity theory gender gender fluidity crossdressing cross-dressing transgender laqueur linguistics modality nuyts medieval late medieval late middle ages middle ages late medieval period History and Archaeology Historia och arkeologi

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Blood beliefs in early modern Europe

“She said she was called Theodore” : - A modality analysis of five transcendental saints in the 1260’s Legenda Aurea and 1430’s Gilte Legende