Thesis advisor: Robin Fleming / Early medieval readers read texts differently than their modern scholarly counterparts. Their expectations were different, but so, too, were their perceptions of the purpose and function of the text. Early medieval historians have long thought that because they were reading the same words as their early medieval subjects they were sharing in the same knowledge. But it is the contention of my thesis that until historians learn to read as early medieval people read, the meanings texts held for their original readers will remain unknown. Early medieval readers maintained that important texts functioned on many levels, with deeper levels possessing more layers of meaning for the reader equipped to grasp them. A good text was able, with the use of a phrase or an image, to trigger the recall of other seemingly distant, yet related, knowledge which would elucidate the final spiritual message of the story. For an early medieval reader, the ultimate example of the multi-layered text was the Bible. But less exalted texts also aspired to this ideal, and the source of the trigger phrases and images most often used to achieve this was the Bible itself, a text that became both the early medieval writer’s model and reserve of references. For an early medieval reader, who would have been a monk or a nun, the Bible was more than a document of faith. In the closed and often isolated world of an early medieval monastery, the words of the Bible would have constantly been in the minds of monastic readers, and also would have been the entryway into the world of eternal truth, with each phrase or image in itself a key to the meaning of sacred history. In the intellectual climate of this world, a monk named Bede, living in a remote monastery in northern England, wrote what is arguably the most important text of the early Middle Ages. This text, the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) (hereafter HE), traces English history from the period of the Roman invasion through the creation of a handful of united, Christian, English kingdoms. Yet this text is in no way a chronicle. Instead it is the story of kings and saints; of the pious and their rewards and the impious and their punishment. For Bede this was a deeply Christian story in which a pagan land was given the gift of faith and of good missionaries ready to establish what became a thriving, living Church. For many historians, Bede’s HE first and foremost is studied as an early text of history: a description of “what happened” and little else. Medieval exegetes, though, like Bede and his contemporaries, thought this first layer of literal meaning was followed by three others: the moral, allegorical, and anagogical levels. To access these levels we must read as Bede did, with the Bible in mind and with an awareness of the presence of many levels of meaning at almost every point in the text. When read this way, the HE is a minefield of biblical allusions that conflate Bede’s story of kings and saints with the story of Creation and Judgment. When we view the HE through the filter of Bede’s biblical allusions, we can see the English become the new Chosen People of God, and England emerge as the new Holy Land. It is in this reading that I have discovered Bede’s Apocalypticism and his explanations for the way events of his own world were connected to the world to come. Bede wrote the HE, so I argue, to make such a reading possible, and yet modern scholars, despite their knowledge of the power and prevalence of early medieval reading culture, have failed to read it in this way—a way that recasts the early medieval intellectual world as a highly mature and literate culture. It is reading Bede as an exegete would, as Bede himself would, that allows us to reconstruct the rarified and sophisticated religious, cultural, and intellectual worlds of early medieval monasteries. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

Tesi sui rapporti tra giurisdizione ecclesiastica e civile in materia matrimoniale / The present dissertation examines the relation between the civil matrimonial jurisdiction and the ecclesiastic matrimonial jurisdiction.

Giovanni Pietro Puricelli viene presentato, attraverso lo studio dei suoi manoscritti conservati presso la Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, come caso significativo dell'erudizione ecclesiastica milanese del XVII secolo, attraverso le sue opere a carattere storico (fra cui quella dedicata agli Umiliati), la produzione omiletica e l'epistolario, che consente di ricostruire le relazioni intercorse con altri studiosi coevi. / Studying Giovanni Pietro Puricelli's manuscripts, at the Ambrosiana Library, he is shown a significant image of the ecclesiastical erudition of the XVIIth Century in Milan, by the analysis of their works about local religious history (especially about the Humiliates), but also through the letters, that help to show the connections between Puricelli and others scholars.

Diplomová práce zkoumá jednotlivé kapitoly knihy Církevní Dějiny napsané Eusebiem Cézarejským, jež je označován jako "otec církevních dějin", přesto kniha obsahuje velké množství nejasností, rozporů, nepřesností a její celkový obsah vyznívá jako snaha o apologii raděj nežli seriózní historické dílo. V diplomové práci vycházím z velkého množství pramenných zdrojů od respektovaných učenců v oblasti teologie rané církve a historie. Cílem práce je důkladně prozkoumat jednotlivé kapitoly, které vykazují největší množství problematických částí stejně tak jako závěr, zda Eusebius se pokoušel cíleně "ohnout" pravdu ve své upřímné víře či zda jeho cílem bylo sepsat obranu křesťanství, která se pouze tváří jako seriózní historické dílo. Annotation The master thesis focus on a particular chapter of Historia Ecclesiastica written by Eusebius of Caesarea, who is renowned as "father of church history" although the book contains a number of serious mistakes, interpolations, discrepancies and exaggerations. In its complexity could be perceived as an apologetic writing rather than historical writing. I used a great amount of sources by respected scholars in my master thesis while its aim is research of particular chapters which demonstrate the most controversies. In the conclusion I expect the biggest challenge will...

Ce mémoire cherche à approfondir les connaissances actuelles de la médiévistique en matière de notion d'espace pour le haut Moyen Âge. L'étude de la figure de l'insula au sein de l'Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum de Bède le Vénérable demeure au centre de cet approfondissement. Le présent document offre dans un premier temps une analyse de la place et du rôle des îles dans les discours géographiques de l'Antiquité et du haut Moyen Âge. S'y trouve ensuite une analyse des principaux sens du vocable insula de l'Historia ecclesiastica suivi d'une réflexion sur les principaux rapports sociaux mis en exergue et les structures auxquelles ils s'attachent. Finalement, on s'intéresse à la notion d'unitas ainsi qu'aux modalités de sa réalisation, sachant qu'elle est nécessaire à la transformation de la Bretagne en « Île promise ».

La ricerca approfondisce il ruolo svolto da Adriano Bernareggi, sacerdote milanese, poi dal 1932 vescovo di Bergamo, nel movimento di rinnovamento degli studi ecclesiastici che ha attraversato il primo trentennio del Novecento. Formatosi presso le Università Gregoriana e Lateranense, nel clima segnato dal modernismo e dalla reazione pontificia, Bernareggi insegnò presso il Seminario di Milano, dal 1909 al 1932, e presso l’Università Cattolica, dal 1922 al 1926. In queste sedi, si sforzò di dare una risposta moderna – non modernista – all’ansia spirituale dell’uomo contemporaneo, attraverso un nuovo linguaggio religioso, capace di valorizzare la storia della Chiesa e, soprattutto, la sua liturgia. Particolare attenzione è stata dedicata: all’insegnamento seminariale, compreso il tentativo di promuovere un aggiornamento della ratio studiorum della Facoltà teologica in senso universitario, seguendo linee che anticipavano la Deus scientiarum Dominus; alla direzione della rivista “La Scuola Cattolica”, che tentò di trasformare in un periodico di scienze sacre nazionale, per riqualificare gli studi religiosi attraverso l’applicazione di una prospettiva storica e del metodo critico-filologico; alla partecipazione al movimento artistico-liturgico milanese, con la riscoperta, guardando all’insegnamento francese e all’abbazia di Maria Laach, del valore iniziatico dei riti; alla prevostura a S. Vittore al Corpo, laboratorio di una nuova “prassi liturgica”; alla sua partecipazione al dibattito sulla Questione Romana e sulla Conciliazione. / The research focuses the role played by Adriano Bernareggi, priest in Milan, then bishop of Bergamo since 1932, in the renewal movement of ecclesiastical studies during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Trained at the Gregorian and Lateran Universities, in a climate marked by modernism and vatican reaction, Bernareggi taught at the seminary of Milan, from 1909 to 1932, and at the Catholic University, from 1922 to 1926. In these sites, he strove to give a modern response - not modernist – to the spiritual anxiety of modern man, through a new religious language, able to enhance Church history and, especially, its liturgy. Particular attention has been paid to: the teaching, including the attempt to promote an update of the Ratio Studiorum of the Theological Faculty, following lines that anticipated Deus Scientiarum Dominus; the direction of the magazine “La Scuola Cattolica”, that he attempted to transform in a national periodic of sacred sciences, to regenerate religious studies through the application of an historical perspective and critical-philological research method; the participation in the liturgical and artistic movement in Milan, looking to french teachings and Maria Laach, especially to rediscovery the initiation value of rites; the prevostship at St. Vittore al Corpo, a laboratory of a new “liturgical practice”; the role in the debate on the Roman Question and Conciliation.