No description available.

This thesis examines the historical writing of the twelfth-century Yorkshire historian Alfred of Beverley, compiler of a Latin chronicle covering the history of Britain from its supposed foundation by Brutus down to the time of Henry I. From the late Middle Ages until the eighteenth century Alfred enjoyed a considerable reputation amongst chroniclers, antiquaries and topographers but by the mid-nineteenth century scholarly opinion had come to consider his work highly derivative, uninformative and of little historical value. The chronicle was printed by Thomas Hearne in 1716, but was never edited in the Rolls Series and the text has remained largely neglected until today. Alfred’s sources in the chronicle have been identified and his use of them examined. The circumstances and date of compilation have been reconsidered and supported by internal evidence from the text, a date of compilation of c.1148 - c.1151 x 1154 is proposed. Alfred’s purpose and intended audience of the work has been considered and evidence for the work’s dissemination and reception from the twelfth to the seventeenth century has been gathered in order to assess the place of the work in medieval historiography. This study finds the Historia to be a text of considerable historical interest and value. It shares common features with historical narratives of the first half of the twelfth century in attempting to provide a comprehensive account of the island’s past, but does so in a more concise, less discursive literary manner. It reveals the application of the methodologies of scholastic exegesis to the writing of history, in its language, textual organization and in the interrogation of authorities that it engages in to determine the veracity of historical data.The text is an important witness for the dissemination of the important twelfth-century source texts it uses. It is the first Latin chronicle to incorporate Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British history into its narrative fabric (Henry of Huntingdon’s c.1139 abbreviation of Geoffrey’s history was inserted as a self-standing ‘Letter to Warinus’). Alfred’s critical reception of the Galfridian material is examined in the thesis. The extensive borrowings from Henry of Huntingdon, Geoffrey of Monmouth, John of Worcester and the Durham Historia Regum, provide important evidence for the dissemination of these texts, which the thesis examines. A finding of the study is that the Historia has been powerfully influenced by Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum in its structure and thematic approach. The later reception of Alfred’s Historia by Ranulph Higden in his Universal Chronicle Polychronicon is examined and the impact that this had on Alfred’s later reception in historiography, from William Caxton to William Camden is traced and explored.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Sir Norman Angell (whose full name was Ralph Norman Angell Lane) was a British journalist who exerted a great deal of political influence. Toward the end of his life, he granted the collection of his personal papers to the Ball State University Library. A number of these documents are In German, and this thesis is an English translation of them, to make their contents more readily available to those students and faculty members who work with them.Several of the articles included here were written by Norman Angell and published in German newspapers. while it is certain that Sir Norman knew German, this translator has been unable to determine whether he himself or some other translator sot his articles into German. This translator consulted dictionaries when necessary; she also referred to several books and to the Ball State Library micro-cards of the Reichstag minutes for aid in deciphering hand-written names and titles.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Norman Angell, most often remembered as the author of The Great Illusion, (1910), was also a member of the British Parliament from 1929 to 1931 and deserves to be remembered for the overall political career that this brief stay in Commons represents. Although Angell was never a popular political figure--the vast working class public failed to identify with him--he was not without great influence during the period in which the Labour Party went from one of ridicule and political obscurity to one of power and respectability. This study analyzes Angell's career in light of his impact on Labour Party leaders, particularly Edmond Dene Morel and James Ramsey MacDonald.The Angell-MacDonald relationship was a complex and ironic one. Although of similar ideological persuasion, neither assumed a dominant role in their relationship. They were both proud, vain and stubborn men, a fact which precluded their assuming a leader-follower relationship. Angell's relationship with Morel was equally full of irony since Morel, the most vociferous member of Labour's intelligentsia in 1924, epitomized the radical element which Angell desired to eliminate in the Labour Party. The fact that Angell had the confidence of both men and wrote many of Morell's articles criticizing MacDonald's policies in 1924, even though he publicly supported "Ramsey," is a measure of his intangible role in the drama of the First Labour Government.Angell's involvement in the personal lives as well as the political careers of these two antagonists predated the First World War. This is significant for several reasons. For one, Angell was instrumental in bringing these strange bedfellows together in 1914 through their co-founding of the Union of Democratic Control. Secondly, it contradicts the current notion that Angell was never greatly interested in politics. Thirdly, it shows that Angell was never completely satisfied with the nonpolitical peace movement which his Great Illusion fostered.Historians have so completely equated "Norman Angellism" with Ralph Norman Angell Lane that this study takes on an added dimension. It offers a perspective from which to view Angell if any future biography is to do justice to the man. Contrary to current thinking Angell was a politician; he eagerly sought a political identity and wanted political power. This study also shows that Angell, although often a man of great vision, should not be remembered as a prophet of the contemporary experience, but rather, as a spokesman for the nineteenth century. Angell was and even saw himself more as a product of the nineteenth century British liberal tradition than as a twentieth century man. Although he held twentieth century economic views, he actually mirrored the social, political, and cultural philosophy of the nineteenth century English middle class. He never altered his greater conception of English society even in the face of new economic and political realities.The tragedy of Angell's being remembered as the author of The Great Illusion is therefore twofold. It not only hides the historical significance of his political career but reflects adversely on the real thrust of his life. Internationalism and pacifism, the two "isms" most often referred to in conjunction with his seminal work, mask his most basic instincts. Norman Angell might have been an internationalist and a pacifist, but, Ralph Lane was a Nationalist and a British patriot of the first rank.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

No description available.