Yes / Objective: Evaluate the prevalence of DISH through time from the Roman to the post-Medieval period in England and Catalonia. Material: 281 individuals from England and 247 from Catalonia were analyzed. Methods: Adult individuals with at least three well-preserved lower thoracic vertebral bodies were analyzed. DISH was assessed considering the early stages of development. Diachronic and geographical dietary shifts were investigated using reported light isotope data, archaeological reports and historical documentation. Results: Males and older individuals showed consistently higher prevalence of DISH, however, only the English sample showed a significant difference between males and females in the prevalence of DISH. No significant difference was found in the prevalence of DISH though time (from Roman to post medieval periods) nor across regions (England and Catalonia). Conclusion: The development of DISH is probably influenced by a combination of factors including increasing age and sex. Significance: This is the first exhaustive analysis of DISH in ancient Catalan populations and the first that considers the early stages of DISH. Limitations: Reduced sample size, particularly in post-medieval samples, as a result of the available excavated samples and the inclusion criteria adopted. Future Research: Include rural, religious and high-status samples in the analysis of DISH. Re-assess the prevalence of DISH in post-medieval populations. / This project was funded by an Institute of Life Sciences Research Studentship awarded by the University of Bradford, Bradford, UK.

<p> An older generation of historians argued that the translation of Aristotle's political works into Latin in the second half of the thirteenth century caused a secularizing revolution in political thought that severely weakened the authority of the Latin Church over secular kings, overthrowing what is often termed the "papal monarchy." However, this thesis has recently undergone severe criticism, to which I offer a contribution, but also a corrective. Aristotle's political thought had nothing to do with the decline of papal power, for his claim that political institutions were natural to mankind was completely acceptable to the Latin Church. The difficulty lay in theologians' interpretation of Aristotle's metaphysical thought, and it was necessarily theologians in the end who had to argue in favor of papal monarchy. Because of Aristotle's soaring popularity in the intellectual climate of the thirteenth century, the papal monarchy could only stay intellectually vibrant if its defenders could keep up with the rise of Aristotelian philosophy generally. The Dominicans Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas built a magnificent synthesis of Aristotle's thought with Christian theology, and they both adduced Aristotle in favor of papal monarchism. However, Aquinas's contemporary, the great Franciscan theologian a, Bonaventure, while a committed papal monarchist, had deep misgivings about Aristotle's metaphysics. He helped promote a reactionary movement that culminated in a massive condemnation of Aristotelian ideas (many of them defended by Thomas) at Paris by Bishop Etienne Tempier in 1277, followed by similar censures at Oxford lasting well into the 1280s. These reactions against Aristotle were severely harmful to the fate of the papal monarchy, for they set ecclesiastical authority against the very theologians that the papacy needed to harmonize the popular Greek thinker's thought with Christianity.</p>

This thesis examines Christianization in the ecclesiastical province of Trier from 570-630, using both traditional and more recent theoretical approaches. It begins by examining the paradigms and limitations of current approaches both to the Merovingian Church and to the concepts of ‘paganism’ and ‘Christianization’. It then introduces the cognitive science of religion focusing in particular on Harvey Whitehouse’s postulation of ‘doctrinal’ and ‘imagistic’ ‘modes of religiosity’ as a theoretical tool. The subsequent section deals with the cult of saints and the figure of the bishop both in general and in the province, using Whitehouse’s approach as a means of opening these up and allowing parallels to be drawn between the cult of saints and funerary feasting. At the same time, his theory is challenged by the variation within these activities in terms of participants and frequency of occurrence. The complex nature of Merovingian monasticism also presents a degree of challenge to Whitehouse’s perception of medieval monasticism as monolithic. Nevertheless, the application of ideas regarding the imagistic mode to recluses opened up new avenues of discussion. A focus on the ecclesiastical province of Trier suggests that the advent of Columbanian monasticism did not produce an instant surge in the number of rural monasteries in the north-east. Examination of church councils offered a double opportunity for the application of modes theory, both to the contents of the councils and to the institution of the councils themselves. A closer examination of councils in the context of place allows for consideration of regional variation. Modes theory is once again challenged: while councils may appear at first to be a supremely doctrinal phenomenon (involving policing and uniformity), they also involve negotiation, ingenuity and reflection. The paucity of sources for the north east tests the regional approach taken here: but it also encourages questions to be asked regarding the spread of manuscripts and ideas. Modes theory reveals the motivations behind apparently prosaic sermon collections as sophisticated, aiming at the policing of the clergy and laity and ensuring the stability of ‘correct’ doctrine. The section on the Synod of Auxerre dealing with standards amongst the clergy and parish care raises questions regarding the possibility of shared beliefs. An examination of the Life of Goar reveals that although its contents might seem appealing in elucidating more details of parish care, the context of the source called its reliability into question. Finally, an analysis of burial rites via three cemeteries in the province of Trier tested the limits of modes theory, and other cognitive approaches were recruited to examine the impact of the concept of liminality on burial practice. Presentation of geographical and archaeological evidence is discussed it is suggested that more extensive database work would enable comparative regional study, allowing for a closer examination of belief, burial and Christianization. This study concludes that the use of modes theory, together with other insights drawn from the cognitive science of religion, offers an alternative and illuminating approach to Christianization. It suggests that future research should regard this as a valid methodological tool for the analysis of medieval religion. It also suggests that a regional focus would benefit future studies of the Merovingian period.

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The intent behind Blood Cries Afar: The Forgotten Invasion of England 1216 was to be the first book to study the French invasion of England in 1216 and the first to offer a military narrative and analysis of its events. In completing the study, a clear understanding is conveyed of the course of fragmented and frequently confusing and neglected events. The large French expeditionary force that landed in England in May 1216 allied with baronial rebels against King John to divide the country for eighteen months. For a year the French occupied and ruled the richest one-third of England, including the capital, London (which remained in their hands for the entire duration of the occupation). At one point, as many as two-thirds of the English baronage recognised the French leader, Prince Louis (heir to the Capetian throne in France) as their monarch; King Alexander II of Scotland travelled to Dover to pay homage to him as King Louis I of England. The invasion was ended by military means, not political ones. The neglect of this major invasion event, which came close to being a second Norman Conquest, is a telling one. In part this is due to its events unfolding over the end of King John's reign the start of and Henry III's (as a minor), and also because it remains in the shadow of Magna Carta from a year earlier. Thus in the few places where the invasion has been investigated, its treatment has been partial, disjointed and brief. This book shows how it was that a succession of military events led to the point that the French were able to launch a full-scale invasion and how the invasion and subsequent occupation was defeated militarily. In so doing, it emphasizes strongly the primacy of military events over political and diplomatic ones, and offers a detailed analysis of campaigning in the early thirteenth century. It offers the most comprehensive account and analysis of a number of engagements, some of which have been almost completely neglected or overlooked entirely. The book also offers fresh insights, context and arguments on the following: Richard I's and England's foreign policy; the military leadership of King John; the first re-issue of Magna Carta; Louis' campaign and planned last-stand; the fluidity of castle warfare; ravaging as a precision weapon; the impact on non-combatants and the role of atrocity; the importance of the invasion to nascent English identity. But most of all, its chief significance is that it offers the first, full-length and military study of events that dominated England from the sealing of Magna Carta in June 1215 to the end of the invasion in September 1217.

Despite the scarcity of source material and the difficulty of interpreting such evidence as exists, it is clear that the development of royal justice led to the emergence of a unified common law in medieval Scotland. This was achieved although no structure of central courts like that of England emerged until the fifteenth century. Instead royal justice was administered by courts based in the localities such as those of the sheriff and the burghs, or by courts such as those of the justiciar which went on circuit through the kingdom. Within this structure there operated from the thirteenth century a rule that actions concerning the recovery of land from intruders had to be raised by pleadable brieves. There were various types of such writs; the relevant ones were the brieves of dissasine and mortancestor, pleadable in the justiciar's court, and the brieve of right, pleadable in the sheriff and burgh courts. It appears that round these brieves there developed a considerable body of law, and at least some of them remained in use until the sixteenth century. It is against this background that the exclusion of the developing 'central' courts of the fifteenth century from cases concerning fee and heritage, or landownership, must be considered. These courts developed as a method of handling the judicial functions of parliament and the king's council. To begin with these functions were confined to the supervision and correction of the ordinary courts of the common law, but by the mid-fifteenth century the jurisdiction of council in particular as an alternative forum was established in most areas other than that of fee and heritage. This limitation, it is argued, continued because the common law still required that pleadable brieves (which were not addressed to either parliament orcouncil) be used to commence actions of that kind. Only when the pleadable brieves had fallen into desuetude in the first half of the sixteenth century did the council come to have jurisdiction in fee and heritage.

This thesis sets out to examine the disposition of the tritone in Gregorian Chant, both as a 'filled-in' and as a disjunct interval, or 'leap'. By comparison with other periods of music history, the tritone's place in early medieval music has hitherto received scant attention; one noteworthy text even claims that it was shunned altogether. But, in general, it has been assumed that the tritone was considered undesirable only as a harmonic device. Intervallic perception is partially determined by the prevailing culture and context. (In respect of the tritone, this is no more demonstrable than in jazz. ) And since the melodic tritone contravenes ancient principles concerning harmonious proportion, the tritone's disposition in the chant may therefore be deemed significant. The primacy of liturgy is affirmed, and the early neume notations accorded an important role in the analyses. The tritone 'leap' seems only to appear in the Great Responsories of the night Office - particularly those of Passiontide - and may owe its existence partly to medieval superstition. Furthermore, modern scholarship has failed to acknowledge the gulf between contemporary theory and practice by adopting a 'theory-dominated view' (as proposed by Rankin in connection with organum at Winchester). Later attempts to edit the tritone from the Benedictine MSS were inconsistent, as illustrated through a comparative study with the Cistercian sources.

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