Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Comparative Literature, 2004. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-01, Section: A, page: 0170. Chair: Rosemarie McGerr. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 11, 2006).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2005. / Thesis advisor: Geoffrey Russom. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 306-328). Also available online.

The manuscript Eg.3511 which contains a missal and kalendar written in the early twelfth century for the nunnery of S. Pietro in Benevento was bought by the British Museum in 1947. Until c. 1940 the missal had almost certainly been in the Biblioteca Capitolare at Benevento (ms.no.VI 29). The contents of the kalendar, which is rich in cults of local significance, reveal the intentions of the Beneventan princes to direct the religious sentiments of their subjects towards the capital, and thus to give some unity to their state. They underline also the importance of the city of Benevento as the link between the east and west of the Italian peninsula - between Byzantium and Rome. Comparison with other documents written in the principality of Benevento between the eighth and thirteenth centuries shows that the missal belongs to a definite liturgical type. A type which was derived from documents received from Rome in the mid-eighth century, before the Carolingian rulers adopted the policy of liturgical conformity with Rome. The Roman documents were altered slightly and adapted to the needs of the Beneventan Church. This new Romano-Beneventan use began its career at Montecassino and gradually ousted a more ancient liturgy, spreading as far east as Bari - and even to Dubrovnik on the coast of Yugoslavia. The conquest of the principality by the Normans in the eleventh century opened the Beneventan church to the liturgical developments which had taken place in north-west France, Norman priests brought to the south their own ordines for the celebration of mass, and added a large number of saints to the Sanctoral, but appear to have made few other changes to the books which they found in the former principality of Benevento. Thus the Romano-Beneventan use, which from the middle of the eighth century had developed in isolation from the liturgy of the rest of western Europe, continued to be the use of this region down to the thirteenth century.

The five MMS selected for consideration from among the eighteen known MSS. of the Chanson d'Aspremont have been chosen quite arbitrarily, the unity constituted by their all being preserved in the Bibliotheque national in Paris being merely of a practical interest. If other than practical justification is required, it is supplied by the discredit, into which the Lachmann method of classification has fallen since M. Bedier's revolutionary preface to his edition of the Lai de l'Ombre in 1913. Greater caution is now incumbent on the student of multiple MSS., and with the abandonment of the wild-goose chase for an archetype, the individual MS. acquires a new Independence and importance, and invites study on its own merits. In the case of the "Aspremont" MSS., already in 1890, Paul Meyer, noting their diversity, considered that the publication apart of several individual MSS. was a desirable preliminary to a critical edition, and this has already been realised for the interesting MS of Wollaton Hall. Strictly speaking, the study of one MS. involves the study of all the others: the present study, being, for practical reasons, chiefly concerned with the five Parisian MSS., cannot therefore pretend to completeness even for these but it may serve as a modest contribution towards their more complete study.

The Heracleians were the rulers of the Byzantine Empire during a particularly interesting period. The seventh century was an age of invasions and, in this respect, it did not differ greatly from much which had preceded it. But the Heracleians, in the course of their efforts to defend the empire against the Slavs, the Persians and the Arabs, were forced to introduce many radical changes. The empire which they succeeded in preserving was very different from that which they had inherited from the successors of Justinian. This development is the salient feature of Byzantium in the seventh century and is directly connected with frontier problems of the Heracleians. The reigns of Heraclius himself, of Constans II, of Constantine IV and of Justinian II almost span this century and their work needs to be treated as a whole since it played a special part in Byzantine history. It i s in this light that the available material has been considered, and, while it is not claimed that anything new has been discovered, such an approach has, at some points, led to a somewhat different interpretation of what has been widely used in the past by others. Both the primary and the secondary material for this period are to be found in a variety of languages and scripts (1) with consequent problems in citation, and it has not proved practicable to follow throughout one uniform method. Names of Greek authors and titles of Greek works are, as is the usual custom, given in Latin wherever there is an accepted Latin form, otherwise they are left in the original. Names of Russian authors and titles of Russian works have been transliterated according to the system recommended by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. Arabic,Syriac, Armenian, Georgian and Ethiopic texts, however, have had to be read only in translation and the methods of transliteration have therefore normally been those of the editions in which these texts appear. In the case of Arabic, however, an attempt at consistency, based upon the system of Professor P. K. Hitti, has been made possible through the valuable advice of Dr. W. J. Martin, Rankin Lecturer in Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Studies in the University of Liverpool. Names of places that have acquired a customary English spelling have been left in that form. Quotations have been given in English except where a purpose could be served by preserving the original.

The Litlyngton Missal, Westminster Abbey Library MS 37, is a lavishly illuminated English service book commissioned by Abbot Nicholas Litlyngton 1383-4 and donated to his Benedictine monastery at Westminster. This thesis examines the life of this medieval ecclesiastical patron and investigates how his missal is an expression not simply of a desire to be commemorated, but is also a reflection of his priorities as a member of Westminster’s monastic community. While the study’s emphasis is on the missal’s iconography, both text and image are contextually examined in order to better appreciate the patron’s intended messages of personal devotion to the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the abbey’s promotion, and protection of its privileges. This study scrutinizes the abbey’s particular status in relation to the crown and how this is reflected through the missal, most especially through the inclusion of coronation orders and royal exequies. Considering the rubrics and illuminations of these ceremonies through the lens of Westminster Abbey and its abbot elucidates their authorship and clarifies why, atypically, they were included in a service book of this kind. Analysis of documentation and examination of the book’s stages of creation affords a better understanding of the missal’s production than has been obtained to date and shows that there is an overarching aesthetic cohesion to the book. The thesis offers a critical reappraisal of the missal’s illumination and reveals previously unacknowledged innovation and subtlety. The thesis considers what images occur, where, and how they relate to the text. The findings regarding the imagery are contextualised by comparison with illumination schemes of other English missals of fourteenth and fifteenth century missals and service books. The thesis discussion begins with a biographical study of Nicholas Litlyngton in chapter one, providing a clear context to the man who commissioned the missal. Chapter two considers Litlyngton specifically in his role as patron of the missal. The focus of chapter three is the production of the missal, focusing on its scribe, the illuminators, and their style. Discussion of the contested matter of number of artists and attribution of work also occurs in this chapter. Chapter four scrutinises the text and images connected to the royal ceremonies and examines the motivation behind their inclusion in the missal. The final chapter considers the manuscript’s iconographic programme through a comparative study of other English missals, and interprets the extent of convention or innovation in the Litlyngton Missal’s illuminations. Chapter five also examines messages contained in the images and reflects on their significance and purpose.

The individual authorial voice of the late-medieval gentry letter-writer as heard in the context of private, familial or public land disputes is the focus of this thesis. It uses as its main sources two fifteenth-century letter collections which arise out of legal challenges: the Armburgh Roll and the letters of John Shillingford, a mayor of Exeter. The Armburgh Roll, c.1417-c.1453, focuses on a disputed inheritance claim and the affairs of the claimants Joan Armburgh and her husband Robert. The Shillingford letters detail a public dispute between the city of Exeter and the ecclesiastical authorities in the 1440s. The aim of this thesis is to further the understanding of the social and cultural attitudes of the fifteenth-century gentry through the analysis of the language and composition of their personal writings as well as to advance the historiographical appreciation of those gentry letters where they were written within the framework of conflict. It is both the deployment of a literary line of enquiry and a comparative study of the language, content and context of the letters that comprises the main strands of the study. It shows how by ‘reading between the lines’ and examining the individuality of the texts it is possible to reveal the thought processes that sit behind the individual writers’ words and therefore to gain a greater insight into the literate gentry strata. It demonstrates the importance of examining the letters with the emphasis on the politics of the writing which in turn reveals the emotional engagement that the individual gentry writer had with his or her own writing. Primarily, the thesis argues that by appraising the personal writings of the gentry with the emphasis on the creation of the texts against an appreciation of the complex ideological beliefs and concepts of the late-medieval period we can develop our understanding of gentry close personal relationships which in turn enables us to add to our knowledge of that important land-owning class and its evolving social hierarchy.

En otro estudio tratamos de mostrar cómo el ejemplo 36 deEl conde Lucanor está subordinado en todos sus aspectos a lasententia que le es anterior y a la cual amplifica y desarrolla.En efecto, todas las inverosimilitudes allí observadas, y de lasque no podían dar cuenta las interpretaciones miméticas y expresivas propuestas por, varios estudiosos, se debían a la necesidad deadaptar las acciones y la conducta de los personajes a los finesdidascálicos del relato, a expensas, incluso, del "realismo" más elemental.

This dissertation places a medieval manuscript of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries in a new historical context. Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript MS 114 has, previously, been understudied and where it has been noticed it has been misidentified. Formally, used only for a few studies focusing on St Bridget of Sweden, it has been considered to be of English provenance, perhaps linked to one of the Birgittine monasteries in England.1 By noting the manuscript’s Dutch provenance and exploring its probable connection to the devotio moderna movement, this thesis will consider how MS 114 might have been used in the early years of the movement. It will examine key themes of different explorations of chastity for lay women, and in particular, the nature of female obedience, as portrayed within the manuscript. This devotional manuscript is made up of nineteen different pieces or extracts from larger medieval works of theology and philosophy. The nineteen articles of the manuscript are arranged in two nearly equal parts. The manuscript’s division into two parts is significant to our thinking about how it was intended to be used and read. The first half, which contains Articles 1 through 10, is made up largely of documents relating to St Bridget of Sweden, exploring her life and arguments concerning the legitimacy of her sanctity. The second part of the manuscript is apparently less unified: no individual figure, like Bridget, ties together its apparently disparate pieces. It is made up of extracts from the works of the Church fathers, anonymous theological guidance and sermons from works of the fourth to the fourteenth century. However, that does not mean that it has no cohesion. Rather, its different articles are linked by a thematic approach, with themes it picks up on ideas expressed in the manuscript’s first part. These two parts are further distinguished by the use of two different scribes. It is both important and interesting to note that these two scribes were working on the manuscript simultaneously, as its second half contains marginal notes, usually corrections of errors in the text, written in the hand of the first scribe. Overall, the nineteen articles contained in MS 114, both those focused around Bridget and those which make no mention of her, emphasize the value of the same virtues: those of humility, chastity, and, particularly, of spiritual obedience in general. These virtues are those of the monastic movements. Claire L. Sahlin has, specifically, labelled Bridget as a ‘fountainhead’ who led the way for later prophetic reformers, including Catherine of Siena, Constance of Rabastens, Marie Robine, Jeanne-Marie of Maille, and Joan of Arc. For several reasons, largely the political upheaval of the Papal Schism but also the social catastrophe of the Black Death, St Bridget of Sweden was the only woman canonized in the fourteenth century, and the only fourteenth century saint canonized in Rome—all others were canonized in Avignon. This will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter Two. Many of these articles are attributed to Early Church Fathers, however, we now know many of these articles are actually Pseudo-written articles from the fourteenth century, Middle Ages, but in a lay setting. Especially when focused upon lay women, these virtues were espoused by the devotio moderna movement. This religious movement emphasized the use of literature and, in particular, the examples of holy, female lay lives. Whereas more popular, and later, devotio moderna manuscripts, known as sister books, used devotio moderna sisters as these examples for the movement’s female lay followers. MS 114 was compiled at a time too early in the movement’s history to have deceased sisterly examples. St Bridget is used in MS 114 in a similar fashion to the later sisters of the sister books. Furthermore, the beginning of the devotio moderna movement coincides with the canonization of Bridget, therefore showing how devotio moderna valued contemporary events within their devotion. The articles in this manuscript, complied in the Netherlands during the early fifteenth century, were, therefore, chosen with precise care and purpose to form a single compilation meant to be read as part of a whole and intended as an enhancement of devotion and of individual devotional practice. This thesis takes two of those themes, chastity and obedience, both of which were rooted in the virtue of humility. It will principally consider these through Article 10, the vita (saint’s life) of St Bridget of Sweden. Bridget’s vita makes up both the physical and the intellectual centre of MS 114. As a saint’s life, Article 10 is also most similar to the later centrepiece of teaching and exempla of the devotio moderna movement: the sister book. Like those manuscripts and later printed books, the saint’s life in general provides stories and anecdotes of the life of a pious individual. Wybren Scheepsma analyses both the physical and literary contents of devotio moderna sister books as well as the sisters themselves. In a manuscript, too large for close study within just one doctorate, the vita also stands out for the way in which it has been adapted for inclusion in this manuscript. More than one vita of St Bridget existed in the early fifteenth century, with the longest, most detailed and best attested being that produced as part of her canonization dossier for the papal curia. The version of the vita found in MS 114 is recognizably a version of that canonization vita: it shares its shape and all the stories told about St Bridget. Yet it is a much-abbreviated version of that work, and the anecdotes considered particularly worthy of inclusion within it are those which emphasise the values of MS 114 as a whole. Additionally, the vita has been altered to focus more closely upon Bridget herself, rather than placing her in the general context of her life and society. The majority of names, for example, have been removed, leaving only Bridget and one or two saints specified as named individuals. This reshaping – or chosen reshaped version, for we cannot be certain whose hand made the alterations here – of the vita makes it a particularly clear demonstration of the purpose of the manuscript’s compilers. Bridget’s canonical vita remains the most popular amongst modern scholars. However, several, significantly, different versions of her life exist in various languages including a popular Middle English vita which was particularly popular amongst English Birgittines such as Margery Kempe. Discussions in this thesis of the manuscript’s themes will, therefore, focus around the vita, whilst also putting it in the context of the other texts found within the manuscript. Overall the thesis aims to consider what it meant in the religious movements of the early fifteenth-century Low Countries to be obedient and to whom obedience was owed, at different stages in the female lifecycle, considering in particular the nature of control and how this was to be expressed by women.

After an introductory chapter, in which the studies of previous scholars are examined, warfare in the Latin East in the period is placed in its historical context. It involved not only crusades: there were long periods of truce when warfare was restricted to raiding expeditions, while many conflicts took place between Christians themselves. The Latin armies are then considered. There were many elements in them - the feudal levy, the Military Orders, mercenaries and other paid troops, confraternities and crusaders - but the armies proved consistently inadequate to deal with the Muslim threat to the Latin East, The Christians, therefore, were dependent on castles and fortified towns for their survival, and it was essential that these should be adequately built, maintained and garrisoned. The Military Orders took increasing responsibility for them during the thirteenth century. Strongpoints had a number of functions, both defensive and aggressive, but lack of manpower meant that their role was often restricted. In the thesis there follows a consideration of the forms armed conflict took. Battles were not a prime factor in the decline of the Latin East, because the Franks were rarely able to raise an army to fight in the open with the Muslims. Battles therefore tended to take place during crusade expeditions, when adequate numbers were available. On some occasions - the First Crusade of Louis IX, and Theobald of Champagne's Crusade, for example - a lost battle seriously impaired a campaign. Battles should be distinguished from raids. The Muslims used raiding expeditions as an integrated part of their efforts to remove the Franks from the east. But the raid was used as an end in itself by the Franks and towards the end of this period it had become their principal means of carrying war to their enemies. Finally, there is a study of sieges. The capture of strongpoints by the Muslims, particularly in the second-half of the thirteenth century, progressively loosened the Franks' grip on the area. Sieges undertaken by the Franks often became matters of attrition, whereas when they were defending themselves, a Muslim assault often proved decisive in a short space of time. The Franks' lack of manpower was again significant.