Thesis advisor: Katherine Nahum / This thesis is a comparison between medieval Christian and Islamic sacred architecture, using the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Chartres as examples. The paper links a formal analysis and comparison of the buildings, including their use of space, light, and decoration to an analysis and comparison of each religion's philosophy and theology. It includes a discussion of the role of Neo-Platonist philosophy on the architecture of each religion. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Fine Arts. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This thesis seeks to understand the changing place of angels in the religious culture of Anglo-Saxon England between AD 700 and 1000. From images carved in stone to reports of prophetic apparitions, angels are a remarkably ubiquitous presence in the art, literature and theology of early medieval England. That very ubiquity has, however, meant that their significance in Anglo-Saxon thought has largely been overlooked, dismissed as a commonplace of fanciful monkish imaginations. But angels were always bound up with constantly evolving ideas about human nature, devotional practice and the workings of the world. By examining the changing ways that Anglo-Saxon Christians thought about the unseen beings which shared their world, it is possible to detect broader changes in religious thought and expression in one part of the early medieval West. The six chapters of this thesis each investigate a different strand from this complex of ideas. Chapters One and Two begin with Anglo-Saxon beliefs at their most theological and speculative, exploring ideas about the early history of the angels and the nature of their society – ideas which were used to express and promote changing ideals about religious practice in early England. Chapters Three and Four turn to the ways that angels were believed to interact more directly in earthly affairs, as guardians of the living and escorts of the dead, showing how even apparently traditional beliefs reveal changing ideas about intercession, moral achievement and the supernatural. Lastly, Chapters Five and Six investigate the complicated ways that these ideas informed two central aspects of Anglo-Saxon religion: the cult of saints, and devotional prayer. A final Conclusion considers the cumulative trajectory of these otherwise distinct aspects of Anglo-Saxon thought, and asks how we might best explain the changing importance of angels in early medieval England.

abstract: In this study, I explore to what extent an erotic orientation toward others’ spiritual characteristics, specifically with regard to “clean” souls, was strongly idealized in at least two medieval English locales, the central Midlands and the North Riding of Yorkshire. Where a hetero-genital orientation was pervasively considered proper with regard to erotic attraction then as today, I propose that, additionally, a desire to associate on a spiritual level with not only those of the same religion but also of like spiritual purity governed desire. As I will argue, this orientation to a spiritual sameness stemmed from a meme of preferred association in life with other Christians with clean souls. I refer to this desire for association with Christian sameness as a homo-spiritual orientation. As I will argue, this homospirituality was the primary basis of erotic desire portrayed and prescribed in the evidence considered in this study. In sum, I argue that fifteenth-century English ways of knowing and feeling desire, reflected in models of desire in romance poetry in these two locales, evidences an erotic orientation based on homospiritual lines of attraction. Moreover, in each area, the models of lay homospiritual erotics were preceded by and coincided with religious writings on the subject that contributed to an overall intellectual current. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

O período presente entre o começo do século XIV e ano de 1418 é indispensável para a compreensão do cenário religioso-político medieval e para a compreensão das bases do mesmo pensamento na Idade Moderna. Neste período temos a mudança da sede da Igreja Católica de Roma pra Avignon, o retorno da mesma para Roma, a divisão da Igreja em dois grupos, cada um liderado por um papa, o Cisma do Ocidente, cisma esse que dura por décadas. Temos a ampliação do pensamento herético, a conversa entre grupos heterodoxos, e tentativas de conciliação que nem sempre eram absolutas e levavam até mesmo a renúncia do cargo pontifical. Neste período viveu John Wycliffe, professor de teologia em Oxford, tendo produzido uma série de obras em latim e outra ainda maior em inglês. Divulgando seus ideias para o povo e criando seu próprio grupo, os Lolardos. Esse pensador, dialogando com os grandes pensadores católicos e revendo pensamentos de outras heresias anteriores, cria a premissa da impossibilidade de uma igreja que fosse ao mesmo tempo autenticamente cristã e institucionalizada ou poderosa, em sua obra The Wicket. Através de uma argumentação racional e humanista, Wycliffe formulou, de certa forma, a base para a reforma protestante, ao mesmo tempo que precisou ser descartado pela mesma, após seu crescimento nos círculos de poder e institucionalização. A melhor compreensão deste peculiar autor e de sua obra permite não somente compreender melhor o mundo da baixa Idade Média, suas disputas religiosas e políticas, como também aprofundar o conhecimento sobre as bases do pensamento moderno. Além de lançar bases para a própria problematização da estrutura do poder religioso em si, seja ele católico ou não. / The Late Middle Ages, specially the period between 1305 and 1418 is indispensable to understand the political an religious though not only of the medieval people, but for the comprehension of the modern ages. In this small period of time much religious turbulence took place in Western Europe. The capital of the Catholic Church moved to Avignon and then returned to Roma, the Church slipt in two different factions in the Great Western Schism and each group was leaded by a different pope, both of them considering themselves as the sumo pontifce and the only true connection between God and men in earth. The Schism lasts for decades and each pope define the other as the antichrist. In this period the heretical though grown up and the attempts of reconciliations of the groups not always become effective, in matter of fact once even a pope renounced his post. John Wycliffe, professor of Theology in Oxford University, lived in this time. He produced a great number of papers in Latin and a even more great number of papers in middle English. His ideas continued with his followers the Lollards. This great thinker created important dialogues with the other heretical thinkers, being one of the most important pre-reformist theologian and creating the bases of the protestant reform. But the also created the idea that the true Christian church would never be institutionalized neither it could be powerful. In his sermon The Wicket, using humanistic reason, he united the words of Jesus in the Gospels to prove that would be impossible to create a strong institutionalized church. So, this particular paper was also put aside because it was not interesting for the newly created institutionalized church of the 16th century Studding this thinker and his works, specially the Wicket is very important to better understand not only the medieval church, but the institutionalized church of all times.

O período presente entre o começo do século XIV e ano de 1418 é indispensável para a compreensão do cenário religioso-político medieval e para a compreensão das bases do mesmo pensamento na Idade Moderna. Neste período temos a mudança da sede da Igreja Católica de Roma pra Avignon, o retorno da mesma para Roma, a divisão da Igreja em dois grupos, cada um liderado por um papa, o Cisma do Ocidente, cisma esse que dura por décadas. Temos a ampliação do pensamento herético, a conversa entre grupos heterodoxos, e tentativas de conciliação que nem sempre eram absolutas e levavam até mesmo a renúncia do cargo pontifical. Neste período viveu John Wycliffe, professor de teologia em Oxford, tendo produzido uma série de obras em latim e outra ainda maior em inglês. Divulgando seus ideias para o povo e criando seu próprio grupo, os Lolardos. Esse pensador, dialogando com os grandes pensadores católicos e revendo pensamentos de outras heresias anteriores, cria a premissa da impossibilidade de uma igreja que fosse ao mesmo tempo autenticamente cristã e institucionalizada ou poderosa, em sua obra The Wicket. Através de uma argumentação racional e humanista, Wycliffe formulou, de certa forma, a base para a reforma protestante, ao mesmo tempo que precisou ser descartado pela mesma, após seu crescimento nos círculos de poder e institucionalização. A melhor compreensão deste peculiar autor e de sua obra permite não somente compreender melhor o mundo da baixa Idade Média, suas disputas religiosas e políticas, como também aprofundar o conhecimento sobre as bases do pensamento moderno. Além de lançar bases para a própria problematização da estrutura do poder religioso em si, seja ele católico ou não. / The Late Middle Ages, specially the period between 1305 and 1418 is indispensable to understand the political an religious though not only of the medieval people, but for the comprehension of the modern ages. In this small period of time much religious turbulence took place in Western Europe. The capital of the Catholic Church moved to Avignon and then returned to Roma, the Church slipt in two different factions in the Great Western Schism and each group was leaded by a different pope, both of them considering themselves as the sumo pontifce and the only true connection between God and men in earth. The Schism lasts for decades and each pope define the other as the antichrist. In this period the heretical though grown up and the attempts of reconciliations of the groups not always become effective, in matter of fact once even a pope renounced his post. John Wycliffe, professor of Theology in Oxford University, lived in this time. He produced a great number of papers in Latin and a even more great number of papers in middle English. His ideas continued with his followers the Lollards. This great thinker created important dialogues with the other heretical thinkers, being one of the most important pre-reformist theologian and creating the bases of the protestant reform. But the also created the idea that the true Christian church would never be institutionalized neither it could be powerful. In his sermon The Wicket, using humanistic reason, he united the words of Jesus in the Gospels to prove that would be impossible to create a strong institutionalized church. So, this particular paper was also put aside because it was not interesting for the newly created institutionalized church of the 16th century Studding this thinker and his works, specially the Wicket is very important to better understand not only the medieval church, but the institutionalized church of all times.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request