This thesis will focus on the devotional accounts of several influential women living in European cloisters or other religious communities during the twelfth, thirteenth, and early fourteenth centuries, such as Hadewijch of Antwerp, Mary of Oignies, Gertrude of Helfta, Mechthild of Magdeburg. I will explore how the rhetoric of love, selfknowledge, intention, and the focus on Christ’s humanity influenced the development of theological themes that affected their experiences and featured prominently in their writing. Finally, this thesis will examine the influence of affective mysticism and of courtly love poetry on the genre of medieval religious literature reporting mystical encounters with Christ by women in cloisters and other religious communities such as beguinages. Understanding more about what influenced these women provides insight into the expression of ecstatic religious experience during the late medieval period.

The purpose of this study is to examine how healing occurred in postwar Knoxville. The central idea is that no single facet, whether economic, political, or social, was responsible for the successful attainment and maintenance of peace in the city. That being said, the importance of economics to the peace process cannot be overstated. Knoxville was evenly divided between Northern and Southern sympathizers just before and during the war. In the immediate postwar period the prevalence and proximity of former enemies led to an eruption of violence on the city’s streets. By 1866, however, peace reigned over the city as businesses boomed and people went to work. This thesis focuses on how this transition from violence to peace took place and flourished in Knoxville during the five years following the end of the American Civil War.

In this study, I have examined the use of the Latin translation of the Arabic Apology of al-Kindi,, regarded as the most influential source of information about Islam for Latin readers in the Middle Ages, by some of its readers from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. My work is divided into three parts, beginning with an analysis of the writings of the man who commissioned the translation, Peter the Venerable, and Peter of Poitiers, the secretary of the first Peter and a member of the translation team. I argue that, for Peter the Venerable, the Latin translation of the Apology was the most important of all the Arabic-to-Latin translations that he sponsored and that it represented the first step in a project that he hoped would culminate in the conversion of Muslims. Second, I discuss the adaptation of the Apology by Matthew Paris and Vincent of Beauvais, two historians who used it to create narratives of early Islam, an area in which other Latin texts failed them. The final section of the thesis is devoted to the annotators who clarified the many words and references in the text likely to confuse uninitiated readers and who conveyed their own thoughts on the text's author and his arguments. I found that these reader-writers were deeply invested in representing Islam accurately, a characterization not often associated with medieval Christian scholars' relationships to the non-Christian religions that they studied. Zeal for accuracy led readers to the Apology in the first place and motivated them to excavate the textual clues that justified its standing, as well as to sidestep or challenge what they deemed inaccurate.

This project argued that the leadership of the Irish middle classes was essential in providing relief to the destitute during the Great Irish Potato Famine, 1845-1851. It further argued that middle class leadership in the Famine period translated into a greater class consciousness and subsequent political leadership. Records from the transactions of relief projects from the Society of Friends, pamphlets written by contemporary British and Irish men of the middle and upper classes, and workhouse records illuminated the role of the middle classes in relief efforts. This project joins that primary research to secondary scholarship on the growing political role of the middle classes in the two decades following the end of the Famine.The evidence showed that the middle classes stepped into a void of leadership created by landlord absenteeism and provided crucial local structures for effective organization distribution of relief. Further the middle classes gained a sense of identity forged in the shared experience of leadership in the Famine. With this common history, the middle classes were able to imagine themselves as a class with similar political interests and goals which they expressed through increasingly powerful national lobbying organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine the ideological impetus to the founding of the second British Empire. The loss of the thirteen North American colonies left the British Empire in a state of crisis. Yet, by the early nineteenth century, the British Empire was once again in a position of global dominance. Many historians have theorized over how Britain united to face and overcome this period of crisis. One historian, C.A. Bayly, has argued that British elites rallied behind a progressive conservative ideology, which became the prerequisite to the founding of the second British Empire.To test this theory, this thesis will examine a case study in imperial service, Lord Charles Cornwallis's service in America, India, and Ireland. Why was Lord Cornwallis, who met so much failure in America, appointed to the crisis points around the empire? What does he symbolize to the empire? How did Lord Cornwallis stabilize the empire and play a significant role in the imperial revival?This thesis will use official and personal correspondence, government documents, and historical research to illuminate these questions.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Birmingham, 1997.

Thése--University of Paris.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Queen's University of Belfast, 1994.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1987.

From 1792 to 1794, a confluence of frightening events created an environment of profound distrust and apprehension in the United States. Anxieties over the future of the American and French republics prevailed over sentiments of friendship and Union. Moreover, inflamed language in the partisan press, rising tensions between emerging political parties, and the centralization of federal (but seemingly monarchical) power rendered the public sphere a hostile place for all but the most secretive and cunning of participants. The tense and impassioned setting posed the following questions for Americans to contemplate: who were the true friends of the Union? What constituted trustworthy information? What value do we place on human association? At this pregnant moment, a democratically inclined, imaginative, and ambitious segment of the American population provided answers. Candor served, in part, as a protective shield from the grave uncertainties of the era. Yet, as a form of political expression, candor empowered non-elites, and was thus never far removed from the contentiousness of the 1790s. Middle and working-class men and women professed candor to express themselves publically in ways that would justify and safeguard their inclusion into the political conversation over the republics future. Further, by appealing to sympathy and friendship through literary demonstrations of candor, these same individuals disrupted traditional, hierarchal relationships. At various levels of social interaction, but especially within political clubs, a new class of citizen was taking shape, one that espoused a more inclusive understanding of public engagement and an expansive meaning of democracy.