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This thesis studies the collections of saints' relics preserved in English religious houses during the Middle Ages. It is based upon an examination of as many lists of relics compiled in these houses as it has been possible to find, together with such related material as is available. The first chapter discusses the attitude of medieval people towards relics in general, and also the present state of study of the subject of relic-veneration and the principles of this inquiry. All the available relic lists are then examined in turn, according to the type of religious house where they originated. In each case, an attempt is made to trace the development of the collection, by determining as far as the evidence permits, when and how it was built up and who were the leading figures in this process. Notice is taken where indications emerge of the many and varied purposes which relics served in the lives of the communities which preserved them and of society in general. The final chapter attempts to explain the fundamental importance by arguing, on the basis of the evidence presented, that each religious house's collections was in a sense, an expression of its own identity. Among the appendices a catalogue of relic lists sets outs as many lists, printed and unprinted, as it has been possible to discover and an index of Saints uses the information given in them to define the relic cults of individual saints in England, by establishing which list claimed relics of each saint. The texts of some important unprinted lists are given in a further appendix.

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This thesis provides a new consideration of the late twelfth-century legal treatise commonly known as Glanvill. Detailed analysis of the extant Glanvill manuscripts has enabled a number of important new conclusions about the nature of the treatise itself and its textual history and development over time relative to the changing common law. The function and ongoing usage of the treatise are discussed in detail and conclusions are drawn about how, when and why the treatise continued to be copied and/or engaged with and what this may reveal about the history of the English common law. Some traditional views about the treatise and its textual history have been challenged, not least the general perception of its two textual traditions as monolithic. This study adds substantively to the scholarship on the two so-called 'versions' of the treatise, Glanvill Continued and Glanvill Revised, both of which have been reassessed. The traditional view that Glanvill Continued represented a significant and 'official' attempt at modernizing the treatise for a mid thirteenth-century audience has been challenged. In contrast, new study of the nature and text of Glanvill Revised has re-emphasized its importance in the treatise's history and the uniqueness of its bipartite revision and re-revision, differentiating and describing these clearly for the first time. An attempt has also been made to see the treatise in the context of the later legal literature that followed it and to link such literature back to Glanvill. It is suggested that the explosion of English legal literature in the thirteenth century at once represents the treatise's success as the written starting point of the common law and its failure, given that, with the notable exception of Bracton, such literature moves substantively away from the earlier treatise. Having said this, Glanvill arguably continued to play a role, direct and indirect, through the later literature of the law and continued to be copied, read and used alongside it. More systematic study has been undertaken of the Scottish text based upon Glanvill, the Regiam Majestatem, and it is argued that the Regiam is a much more genuine attempt at re-editing Glanvill than has traditionally been thought and that the twelfth-century English treatise may have been surprisingly applicable in early fourteenth-century Scotland. Finally, this study has involved a new assessment of the later history of Glanvill from the fifteenth century to today, considering both the later ownership and use of its manuscripts and early printed editions and its legal and political citations. Consideration of the varying function and usage of the treatise over time enables light to be thrown upon Glanvill, the later periods in which it was read and used and the beginnings of legal history.

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This project examines mystical discourse in medieval India and medieval England as a site for the construction of new images of women and the feminine. I study the poems of three women mystics from western India, Muktabai (c. 1279-1297), Janabai (c. 1270-1350) and Bahinabai (c. 1628-1700) in conjunction with the prose accounts of the two most celebrated women mystics of late medieval England, Julian of Norwich (c. 1343-after 1413) and Margery Kempe (c. 1373-after 1438). My principal areas of inquiry are: self-authorizing strategies, conceptions of divinity, and the treatment of the domestic. I find that the three Hindu mystics deploy a single figure, the guru, as their primary source of spiritual authority. In contrast, the self-authorization of Julian and Margery is more diffuse, for the two mystics record testimony from a variety of sources, including Christ himself, to prove their spiritual credentials. The texts under scrutiny offer variously gendered models of the divine; three of the five mystics show preference for a feminized god. Julian and Bahinabai invest their deities with physical and mental attributes that were labelled feminine, such as feeding and nurturing. However, both women accept God’s sexed body as fundamentally male. Janabai is the most innovative of the mystics in her gendering of the divine; her deity Vitthal’s sexed body can be either male or female, although (s)he typically undertakes chores that were the province of women. Janabai is not the only mystic to attempt a reconciliation of the domestic and the spiritual. As narrated in the Booke, Christ expresses willingness to help Margery with her baby, although the text is silent about whether this offer was accepted or not. In addition, Margery undertakes domestic tasks for God and his family, thus investing them with a new dignity. My study demonstrates that as the mystics address questions of women’s relationship with the divine, they go beyond binary frameworks, positing fluid boundaries between male and female, body and spirit, and mundane and spiritual. Thus, these texts can be harnessed to engage creatively with the model of inclusive feminine spirituality expounded by feminist thinker Luce Irigaray, particularly in Between East and West (2002). / text