Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis seeks to theorize the rhetoric, power dynamics, agency, and rulership of Theophanu and contextualize it through the frame of an intersection of the Byzantine and Ottonian political culture. By analyzing the unique sources surrounding Theophanu – from charters written during her consortship to chronicles written about her posthumously – this thesis seeks to push scholarship to examining Theophanu at the intersection of these two hegemonic cultures. This thesis will analyze the rhetoric of transgression surrounding the empress, the politics of power in the Ottonian court, as well as the gender of Theophanu to bring a nuanced frame of analysis to understand complicated relationship the empress had with these two cultures. This thesis seeks to use this frame of analysis to examine the political and social spaces surrounding Theophanu. The chronicles written about her during and after her life underline socio-political relations with the Ottonians and Greeks, which this thesis seeks to highlight. This thesis also analyzes the various titles in which Theophanu utilized in her political life, both masculine and feminine, through a complex political and gender frame. This analysis will help expand scholarship past thinking about Theophanu in dichotomous terms and will provide scholars a new lens to view a complex historical figure. This involves analyzing the Ottonian court and its culture as a social space, and disecting it through Lefebvre’s framework. Theophanu’s role as a Byzantine princess and later empress becomes much clearer through a theoretical analysis. Then, this thesis moves on to examine the theoretical framework of Theophanu’s political and diplomatic power through the theory of Gilles Deleuze. Then, the implications and usage of her power will be explored, as well as the ramifications and legacy of her rule. Overall, this thesis highlights the extensive power Theophanu held at her disposal ̶ both actively and passively ̶ and how this molded the social space around her. This thesis shifts the discourse from seeing Theophanu as a positive or negative ruler, and instead focuses on how she utilized power, and how others around her utilized her power and image.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität zu Köln, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 368-431) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Vereinigte Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 1931. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references and chronological table.

Thesis--Hamburg. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study explores several of the key factors that led to the visual amplification of Mary in western Europe during the early Middle Ages, with the art of the Ottonian Empire as its focus. Although the twelfth century has long been recognized as a high point for Marian imagery, the brief but rich period of artistic production during the Ottonian Empire (919-1024) yielded a range of images crucial for understanding the growing role of the Virgin in art and devotion. The approach for this work is necessarily thematic; the seeming randomness of Ottonian images of the Virgin has resulted in their exclusion from broad surveys organized by iconographic type or medium. While images of the Virgin in the Ottonian Empire do not form large groups of visually cohesive images, Ottonian manuscript illumination offers an intriguing view into the process by which Marian devotion coalesced in the west. The period has been thought to represent a lacuna for Marian exegesis -- between the Carolingian period and the twelfth century there were no new theological texts written on the Virgin in this region. There was, however, an intensification of interest in Mary in the liturgy, and as I demonstrate, an attempt to formulate exegesis through images. In studying the odd occurrences -- the lone tenth-century image of a Virgin in a Pentecost scene, or the earliest crowned Virgin outside of Italy -- this study locates these works within their liturgical and political environment through considerations of patronage and use.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Art History, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The aim of this PhD thesis is to investigate the political role of Adelheid of Burgundy in tenth-century Europe. Adelheid was certainly one of the central figures of the Ottonian dynasty during her years as empress and during her widowhood. The systematic study of the diplomas in which she acted as mediator alongside Otto I, Otto II and Otto III was an attempt to understand the basis of her political relevance. The result of the diplomatic research was analyzed through the method of social network analysis, which offered a new and global point of view on the issue and allowed to better focus on the various actors that composed the network of relationships of Adelheid during her life. / Lo scopo della presente tesi di dottorato è l’analisi del ruolo politico di Adelaide di Borgogna nell’Europa del secolo X. Adelaide fu certamente una figura di spicco all’interno della dinastia ottoniana sia in qualità di imperatrice al fianco di Ottone I sia negli anni della vedovanza. Lo studio sistematico dei diplomi in cui la sovrana venne indicata come mediatrice presso il marito, il figlio e il nipote ha rappresentato il punto di partenza per indagare le basi e le motivazioni della sua rilevanza politica. In particolare, il risultato della ricerca diplomatica è stato esaminato attraverso la metodologia della social network analysis che ha offerto un punto di vista nuovo e globale sulla questione e ha permesso di individuare più chiaramente i vari attori che composero la rete di relazioni dell’imperatrice nell’intero corso della sua vita.

The subject of this thesis is the relationship between hagiography and cult in the early medieval west taken through the example of the Passiones of St. Kilian of Würzburg († 689) in the period from circa 700 to circa 1000 AD. Through examining a cult which developed east of the Rhine, this thesis will assess these developments taking place in a region without a strong Christian-Roman history. Thuringia produced new saints and cults in this period, yet they all operated within the overarching framework of the well-established religious phenomenon of saints' cults. In its approach, this thesis builds upon the insights of Ian Wood, James Palmer and others, in which saints' Lives are viewed as ‘textual arguments' which could operate beyond cultic contexts. This is combined with the cultural context approaches advocated in geographically specific studies by the likes of Julia Smith, Thomas Head and Raymond Van Dam. By paying particular attention to the impact of updating saints' Lives this thesis provides an in depth comparison of the relatively overlooked two earliest passiones of St. Kilian and their place in the history of the Würzburg community. It therefore addresses the nature and function of hagiography and its relationship with the institutional memory and identity of that community. The spread of cult through texts and relics is compared with the distribution of the hagiography in order to form a picture of the relationship between these different facets of cult. The question of the way in which these passiones engaged with their wider political and religious contexts is also addressed in order to demonstrate the functions of hagiography outwith an immediate cultic context.

This thesis examines the relationships between royal convents and rulers in Saxony from 852 to 1024. The spate of female monasteries founded in Saxony in the ninth and tenth centuries, alongside the close relationships of major convents to the Ottonian dynasty, has led to Saxon female monasticism being described as unique. As such, Saxony's apparently peculiar experience has been used to make comparisons with other regions about the nature of female monasticism, commemoration and the role of women in early medieval societies. This thesis interrogates these ideas by tracking the development of two major royal convents: Gandersheim and Quedlinburg. By reassessing the origins of these convents, and their later rewriting in sources produced by these monasteries, we can consider how their relationships with the rulers of Saxony developed over time, and how their identity and function as royal monasteries evolved as the tenth century progressed. In doing so, this thesis challenges the dominant understanding of these convents as homes of the Ottonian memoria and provides a detailed view of how these institutions became so prominent in Saxony. The thesis is divided into four sections. After introducing the historiographical importance of this topic in the first chapter, in chapter two I assess the origins of the convent of Gandersheim in Carolingian Saxony. Chapter three turns to the rewriting of these origins by Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim in the 970s. Chapter four reconsiders the early history of the convent of Quedlinburg from 936 to 966. Chapter five tracks how the origins of Quedlinburg evolved into a new narrative across the tenth century, culminating in the version provided by the Quedlinburg Annals in 1008. Finally, the concluding section outlines the significance of this thesis for our understanding of early medieval female monasticism and the history of the Ottonian Empire.