This study concentrates on the personification of death in Middle English literature and examines some examples of the literature from the period.

The just war is an ethical notion justifying, under certain circumstances, participation in war. The just-war notion has been part of Western thought from the earliest times, and persists to this day in the writings of Michael Walzer and other philosophers. This dissertation explores the middle history of the just-war idea, the post-classical and pre-modern era--from the time of Christ to the rise of the Renaissance. I examine the origins and early development of this notion starting with an ideological analysis of the New Testament and Apocryphal Gospels. The scriptures indicate a diverse, multifaceted tableau of attitudes toward war, ranging from pacifism to acceptance and admiration for the Roman military. This diversity of attitude is corroborated by the surviving funeral inscriptions and papyri of casual correspondence between Christian soldiers and their families, which show no moral compunction about military service. I have concluded that the evidence for Christian participation in the Roman military in the century before Constantine is clear and convincing. The patristic literature before Constantine is divided; while some writers espoused pacifism, others were open to the ethical possibility of military service by Christians, thus preparing the groundwork for the articulation of the just war. The history of the idea of the just war can be pictured as a circular, revolving process, from an ideological preparation for military involvement in the earliest days of Christianity and gradual involvement and ultimately full participation in the Roman military under Constantine. Ambrose and Augustine provided the foundation for this process by Christianizing the Ciceronian concept of just war. However, the history of the just war is not a perfect circle. While Leo I, Gregory I and Isidore ignored Augustine's sanction of the just war, the canon lawyers of the eleventh century revived Augustine. Thomas Aquinas, with Aristotelian thoroughness, gave this concept free and unbridled power, only to have it revert to its origins in secular international law after the Council of Constance.

This study traces the representations of the Nizari Isma'ilis, or Assassins, in medieval European texts, a process revealing three different discourses about the sect. I argue that when the crusaders first encountered the Syrian branch of the sect, they sought to enter into an alliance with its members. Early texts discussing the Assassins reflect this desire for an alliance and treat the sect correspondingly. The events at the end of the twelfth century—especially the assassination of Marquis Conrad of Montferrat, newly elected King of Jerusalem—introduce a new way of approaching the sect in Latin Christian histories and chronicles of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. To the historians chronicling the death of Conrad, the sect functions as an instrument in the portrayal, positive or negative, of more significant historical figures such as Richard the Lion-Heart of England, Philip Augustus of France, and Conrad himself. Although the occasion of Conrad's murder did not immediately lead to the rejection of a discourse of alliance in treating the Assassins, this early approach to the sect was eventually replaced by one of exoticization in the thirteenth century. This third and final discourse rose to prominence as the historical Nizaris lost their independence and power, ultimately falling to the Mongols in 1256. As a result of the process of exoticization, the Assassins came to be seen as a “wonder of the East.” The three approaches to the Assassins outlined above did not succeed each other, but rather overlapped and sometimes existed simultaneously. Nonetheless each discourse achieves dominance at a different time. Thus, the discourse of alliance predominates in the early years of the medieval European representation of the sect, but the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat informs the perception and depiction of the Assassins from 1192 to the first third of the thirteenth century. Thereafter the discourse of exoticization becomes the dominant discourse about the Assassins in Latin Christendom, one that continues to influence our understanding of the sect to this day.

This thesis addresses whether or not, according to theologians, virgins could maintain their virginity even after instances of physical loss, such as rape. I will use post-structuralism as the method. This thesis will use a socio-cultural analysis by viewing virginity's relationship with the norms of society. It will examine virginity and its place within texts and the Christian tradition. Most importantly, it will view how virginity has changed over time, and from one thinker to the next in response to the tension between the body and spirit. Beginning with Augustine, and into the medieval era, there are theological ideas that allow for virginity to remain even after physical losses like rape. This was not true for most thinkers before Augustine. Physical virginity was rendered absolute in order to claim virginity. The goal is to assess raped virginity's place within medieval society. Virginity offered an escape to women who did not wish to marry and bear children, and also offered the highest honor of heavenly reward alongside martyrdom. However, maintaining physical virginity could not always be guaranteed. Rape was a threat to many Holy Virgins in medieval Europe, especially in times of violence. This paper will assess how women of the convents were able to maintain their virginity even when threatened with violation. The change in the theology of virginity provided a way for these virgins to challenge rape. Spiritual virginity, which was in constant tension with bodily virginity, was an idea developed in response to rape, allowing a woman's access to virginity regardless of physical intactness. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 15, 2015. / Medieval, Monasticism, Rape, Violence, Virginity / Includes bibliographical references. / François Dupuigrenet, Professor Directing Thesis; Kathleen Erndl, Committee Member; Nicole Kelley, Committee Member.

The Libro del rey Canamor is one of a small group of chivalric narratives that reached popularity levels in sixteenth-century Europe similar to the “best-seller” of today. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries these works were often overlooked or easily dismissed by scholars and many have been forgotten by the modern press. My proposal is to present the Libro del rey Canamor to the scholarly public for closer examination, easier access and renewed interest. This study presents a review of the essential distinctions often made between various types of chivalric narratives, leading to a brief discussion of their history in Hispanic literature, as well as their classification and acceptance through the years. It also examines the history of the shorter narratives and their relation to sixteenth-century printing and the creation of an editorial genre. The analysis of the Libro del rey Canamor examines its editorial history and narrative structure. Although some of its contemporaries were published for a longer period of time, this text was not able to extend its publishing life into the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, there were at least ten different editions in its heyday. The Libro del rey Canamor consists of two independent nuclei which create a hybrid text, the first part of which comes from a medieval source, while the second brings to light the aforementioned editorial genre. It is likely that the second part was written specifically for publication in early sixteenth-century Valencia. The analysis of content focuses on the major protagonists, folk motifs and their roles and functions in the more developed episodes. Finally we examine the presence of humor found in each section, concentrating on battle bravado, love intrigues, and jests. The review of the history of the chivalric narratives, both editorial and social, as well as the analysis of the internal elements of the Libro del rey Canamor in particular, show that this brief narrative is a hybrid text: a combination of a medieval narrative, albeit heavily edited, and a newly written second generation, melded together to create one of the best-sellers of sixteenth-century Spain.

The thirteenth-century poetic dedication to Santa Oria is a vividly portrayed life of a little-known saint. Author, Gonzalo de Berceo abides by tradition in ways that the devotional poem is well-received by his public while presenting innovation which demands the attention of his contemporary audience. The Spanish poet selects a female religious subject and conforms to certain familiar motifs of female spiritual progression simultaneously exploring novel pathways. Dreams and voyages to the other world are decoratively displayed through a schematic of symbols, both bold and subtle. The artistic and picturesque quality to the poem melds elements of literary tradition to create an original voyage of a young saint, a vision and her soul. This study investigates the five visionary journeys presented in the poetic dedication to Oria. Elements of symbolism and imagery, the scripting of sanctity, with regard for female holiness, and the access to and artistic rendering of the other world are identified and located with respect to an opulent hagiographic ancestry. The Poema de Santa Oria is presented in context with other thirteenth-century mester de clerecía poems also offering visionary escapes. The Spanish-language works of shared legacy with Oria offer shades of the heavenly realm yet do not penetrate the other world locations to the extent of visionary literary precedent. The Poema de Santa Oria is positioned within an extensive tradition of hagiographic and visionary legacy descending from both art and letters. It is argued here that as a body, Oria shared language, experience and earthly spaces with her mester de clerecía contemporaries, yet the journeys of her spirit are more closely aligned with earlier literary experiences of divine destinations. Berceo's artistic style is as gentle and deliberate as the characters and landscapes he portrays. Consideration is given to the artist's exploitation of the senses which result in creation of the precious pictorial images governing narration of the saint's visionary world.

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This thesis is an examination of the most important Scottish saints’ cults and pilgrimage centres in the period c.1349-1560. Specifically, this project locates the role of this group within the wider devotional practices of the late medieval kingdom. Through analysis of liturgical calendars, ecclesiastical dedications, contemporary literature and naming and pilgrimage patterns, it identifies and explains the distinctive features of the veneration of national saints in late medieval Scotland in the two centuries from the first appearance of the Black Death in 1349 to the Reformation in 1560. The key theme of this thesis is the consideration of the manner in which external factors, such as general Western European social and religious developments, and distinctly local phenomena such as the intermittent warfare with England and the varied agendas of interest groups like shrine custodians, the national church and the crown, impacted upon the saintly landscape of the late medieval kingdom and the popular piety of its people. The medieval cult of the saints is a subject of considerable value for historians because it was a movement in a constant state of flux. It adapted to the socio-religious context of the societies in which it operated. Although never neglected as an area of study, the cult of the saints in Scotland has received further attention in recent years through the influence of the Survey of Dedications to Saints in Medieval Scotland project carried out at the University of Edinburgh from 2004-7. However, studies on the role and function of national and local saints, those believed by contemporaries to have had a Scottish provenance or a hagiographical connection to the medieval kingdom, have tended to focus on two specific periods. These were the so called ‘age of the saints’, the period between the fourth and eighth centuries in which the majority of these men and women were thought to have been active, or the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from when the main Latin hagiographical sources originate. The role and function of this group in the later middle ages has been either neglected or subject to the pervasive influence of a 1968 article by David McRoberts which argued that church- and crown- sponsored patriotism was the main factor in shaping popular piety in this period. This thesis will question this premise and provide the first indepth study of the cults of St Andrew, Columba of Iona/Dunkeld, Kentigern of Glasgow and Ninian of Whithorn in a late medieval Scottish context, as well as the lesser known northern saint, Duthac of Tain.