The aim of this thesis is to investigate the lives of men and women living in London and Bury St. Edmunds in the late fourteenth - early fifteenth centuries. Sources studied include the administrative and legal records of the City of London and of the Abbot and Convent of St. Edmund's abbey; legislation and court records of royal government and the wills and testaments of Londoners and Bury St. Edmunds' inhabitants. Considerable research on a wide range of topics on London, but far less work on Bury St. Edmunds, has already been undertaken; however, this thesis is the first systematic comparative study of these two towns. The introduction discusses the historiography and purpose of the thesis; the methodology used, and the shortcomings of using medieval wills and the probate process. Chapter One discusses the testamentary jurisdiction in both towns; who was involved in the will making process, and the role that clerics played as both executors and scribes and how the church courts operated. Chapter Two focuses on testators' preparations for the afterlife, their choices concerning burial location, funeral arrangements and the provisions made for prayers for their souls. Chapter Three examines in detail their pious and charitable bequests and investigates what ‘good works' testators chose to support apart from ‘forgotten tithes'. The family and household relationships, including servants and apprentices, are examined in Chapter Four, exploring the differences in bequests made depending on the testators' marital status, together with evidence for close friendships and social networks. Chapter Five discusses the ownership and types of books referred to in wills and the inter-relationship between the donors and the recipients. Testators' literacy and the provision for education are also investigated.

Carte du bailliage en fichier complémentaire. / Le bailli d’Amiens, sous Philippe VI (1328-1350), intervenait fréquemment dans les principautés du Nord de la France que sont les comtés d’Artois, de Ponthieu et de Flandre. L’étendue de son ressort, ainsi que son emplacement stratégique, en firent une sentinelle du gouvernement central et un ardent défenseur des droits du roi. Agissant parfois avec trop de zèle, entrant ce faisant en conflit avec les juridictions urbaines, d’Église et seigneuriales, cet officier royal constituait un lien important entre les justiciables de sa circonscription et l’autorité royale des actes et lettres de laquelle il devait veiller à la transmission et l’exécution. De son côté, la cour du roi sembla approuver le travail du bailli, n’intervenant que rarement en réaction aux excès commis par ce dernier et confirmant l’essentiel des sentences du bailli jugées en appel. / The bailiff of Amiens, under Philip VI (1328-1350), frequently intervened in the principalities of northern France that are the counties of Artois, Ponthieu and Flanders. The extent of its jurisdiction, and its strategic location made him a sentinel of the central government and a staunch advocate of the king’s rights. Sometimes acting too zealously, thereby entering into conflict with urban jurisdictions, and stately church, this royal officer was an important link between citizens of his district and the royal authority of the acts and letters which he had to ensure transmission and execution. For its part, the king's court seemed to endorse the work of the bailiff, intervening only rarely in response to the excesses committed by the latter and confirming the main awards of the Bailiff considered on appeal.

This thesis undertakes a close study of a single manuscript of the early 1320s, written at the priory of Fineshade, Northamptonshire. The manuscript contains a short chronicle and several documents related to the failed baronial rebellion of 1321-22. I argue that, in collaboration with the priory’s patrons, the Engayne family, the chronicler responds to the current situation with an attempt to create meaning from a time of crisis. In the process, he attempts to shape his material through patterns of style and thought inherited from both chronicle and hagiographical traditions, to make the present conform to the known and understood shape of the past. His success is limited by his inability to establish sufficient distance from traumatic events, a difficulty that many chroniclers seemed to encounter when they attempted to turn current events into meaningful historical narrative.

This thesis undertakes a close study of a single manuscript of the early 1320s, written at the priory of Fineshade, Northamptonshire. The manuscript contains a short chronicle and several documents related to the failed baronial rebellion of 1321-22. I argue that, in collaboration with the priory’s patrons, the Engayne family, the chronicler responds to the current situation with an attempt to create meaning from a time of crisis. In the process, he attempts to shape his material through patterns of style and thought inherited from both chronicle and hagiographical traditions, to make the present conform to the known and understood shape of the past. His success is limited by his inability to establish sufficient distance from traumatic events, a difficulty that many chroniclers seemed to encounter when they attempted to turn current events into meaningful historical narrative.

During the fourteenth century, with the rise of Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1292-1361), the gzhan stong philosophical tradition became a source of great controversy in Tibet. Dol po pa taught this new philosophical tradition for the first time to the wider Tibetan intellectual community. As Dol po pa's Jo nang teachings attracted an audience, many other philosophical giants of the day, such as Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290-1364), Red mda' ba Gzhon nu blo gros (1349-1412/13), and their students composed polemical works to refute Jo nang tradition. Lamp that Illuminates the Expanse of Reality was composed in the midst of this controversy to defend the Jo nang point of view. In it, its author, Gha rung pa Lha'i rgyal mtshan (1319-1402/03), attempts to prove that the Jo nang philosophical tradition is the definitive teaching and the quickest path to achieve the Buddhahood.

Le bailli d’Amiens, sous Philippe VI (1328-1350), intervenait fréquemment dans les principautés du Nord de la France que sont les comtés d’Artois, de Ponthieu et de Flandre. L’étendue de son ressort, ainsi que son emplacement stratégique, en firent une sentinelle du gouvernement central et un ardent défenseur des droits du roi. Agissant parfois avec trop de zèle, entrant ce faisant en conflit avec les juridictions urbaines, d’Église et seigneuriales, cet officier royal constituait un lien important entre les justiciables de sa circonscription et l’autorité royale des actes et lettres de laquelle il devait veiller à la transmission et l’exécution. De son côté, la cour du roi sembla approuver le travail du bailli, n’intervenant que rarement en réaction aux excès commis par ce dernier et confirmant l’essentiel des sentences du bailli jugées en appel. / The bailiff of Amiens, under Philip VI (1328-1350), frequently intervened in the principalities of northern France that are the counties of Artois, Ponthieu and Flanders. The extent of its jurisdiction, and its strategic location made him a sentinel of the central government and a staunch advocate of the king’s rights. Sometimes acting too zealously, thereby entering into conflict with urban jurisdictions, and stately church, this royal officer was an important link between citizens of his district and the royal authority of the acts and letters which he had to ensure transmission and execution. For its part, the king's court seemed to endorse the work of the bailiff, intervening only rarely in response to the excesses committed by the latter and confirming the main awards of the Bailiff considered on appeal. / Carte du bailliage en fichier complémentaire.

This thesis undertakes a close study of a single manuscript of the early 1320s, written at the priory of Fineshade, Northamptonshire. The manuscript contains a short chronicle and several documents related to the failed baronial rebellion of 1321-22. I argue that, in collaboration with the priory’s patrons, the Engayne family, the chronicler responds to the current situation with an attempt to create meaning from a time of crisis. In the process, he attempts to shape his material through patterns of style and thought inherited from both chronicle and hagiographical traditions, to make the present conform to the known and understood shape of the past. His success is limited by his inability to establish sufficient distance from traumatic events, a difficulty that many chroniclers seemed to encounter when they attempted to turn current events into meaningful historical narrative.

This thesis Sermons of Jindřich from Vildštejn in Litomyšl deals with the preaching work of the cleric Jindřich of Vildštejn, which is preserved in the manuscript of the Bavarian State Library in Munich (BSB, Clm 14256). In order to describe and evaluate this handwritten collection, the author chooses only a small probe (three of the total of thirteen preachers), in which in various ways he shows the form, context and socio-communicative purpose of the late medieval sermon. These three sermons were held in Litomyšl (1376 and 1378). Two of them are Eucharistic sermons and one is funeral speech on the occasion of the funeral of Charles IV. At the beginning of the whole work, the reader is introduced with the life of the historical personality of Jindřich of Vildštejn who was a member of the Minority Order and who held several episcopal offices throughout his life. In the second part, the author presents a description and classification of selected preaching texts. The third part of the thesis is an interpretative study in which the author tries to elucidate the contemporary communication significance of one important phenomenon of medieval preaching manuscripts such as the abundant use of quotes from the Bible and the authorities. At the very end of the work, the critical edition of three sermons...

Le projet historique de Jean Froissart s’inscrit dans un discours particulier sur les genres historiques, sur les rapports entre la forme et la vérité que le récit des faits est censé véhiculer, sur la manière de construire l’autorité de l’histoire racontée. C’est au croisement entre ce contexte et l’individualité de l’auteur que nous avons voulu sonder les perspectives du chroniqueur sur l’écriture historique. Préoccupé dès le début par les questions de l’impartialité et de la crédibilité de son propos, Froissart met en place un système référentiel de plus en plus complexe qui a pour but d’authentifier son récit des grands événements qui secouaient les royaumes occidentaux depuis presqu’un siècle. La réalité historique que Jean Froissart recrée dans ses Chroniques est dépendante des facteurs personnels qui conditionnaient son appréhension du monde, des manières dont il s’identifiait dans la société de son temps. Elle est recréée avec un grand talent de raconter, mais aussi – ce que l’on a trop souvent méconnu – avec un souci de plus en plus accru de découvrir et d’exposer les réseaux de causes qui sont à l’œuvre dans le cours des événements. Cependant, les moyens littéraires auxquels Froissart faisait appel et qui sont associés notamment à l’art du conteur qu’il était, participent eux à l’authenticité de l’histoire qu´il raconte. Car si le chroniqueur se veut celui qui éternise les faits dignes de mémoire, il se refuse en même temps à écrire une autre histoire que véridique. Et cette préoccupation première de son écriture ne doit pas être obscurcie par le fait que son approche ne corresponde pas à nos critères contemporains de l’écriture de l’histoire. / Jean Froissart´s historical project falls within a specific discourse on historical genres, on relationships between form and truth which an account of deeds is expected to convey, on the manner in which the authority of a story being told is constructed. It is on the very intersection of this context and the individuality of the author that I based my search for the chronicler’s perspectives on the writing of history. Froissart was from the outset concerned with the issues of impartiality and credibility of his account and created a system of references, which grew more and more complex, designed to authenticate his version of important events which had been shaking the West for almost a century. The historical reality which Jean Froissart recreates in his Chronicles is dependent on personal factors which determined his understanding of the world as well as his self-identification within the society of his time. It is undeniably recreated with great storytelling talent, but also – and this has often been overlooked – with growing desire to discover and expose the relations of causes which were at work in the course of the events. Nonetheless, Froissart’s literary means, which are often associated with his artistry as a storyteller, do contribute, for their part, to the authenticity of the story. For if the chronicler presents himself as the one who eternalizes deeds worthy of remembrance, he refuses at the same time to write any other history than the true and truthful one. This primary concern of his should not be obscured by the fact that his approach and methods do not correspond to our contemporary criteria of historical writing.

This thesis undertakes a close study of a single manuscript of the early 1320s, written at the priory of Fineshade, Northamptonshire. The manuscript contains a short chronicle and several documents related to the failed baronial rebellion of 1321-22. I argue that, in collaboration with the priory’s patrons, the Engayne family, the chronicler responds to the current situation with an attempt to create meaning from a time of crisis. In the process, he attempts to shape his material through patterns of style and thought inherited from both chronicle and hagiographical traditions, to make the present conform to the known and understood shape of the past. His success is limited by his inability to establish sufficient distance from traumatic events, a difficulty that many chroniclers seemed to encounter when they attempted to turn current events into meaningful historical narrative.