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The Anglo-Saxon patron often commissioned images in which he or she bears a visual rendering of his or her donation. The donor’s model is often overlooked in modern scholarship because there is no existing framework with which to address larger issues raised by the image type. This thesis proposes a framework developed through a close reading of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Using the Old English literary trope of the tacen, or in modern English, the token, this thesis seeks to reframe the donor’s model in order to understand how the model creates meaning. Like the donor’s model found in medieval donor portraits, the tacen in Anglo-Saxon literature is a held object that in large part symbolizes the gift giver’s relationship with the community. This thesis argues that beyond merely a model used to attribute patronage, the tacen found in Anglo-Saxon donor portraits acts simultaneously as a visual record of an event and an object used to teach and encourage viewers. Viewing the donor’s model as a tacen also surpasses the purely historical function of the image type by allowing the representation of the model to transcend both time and space. Using the concept of the tacen as a framework for analysis demands that an entirely new set of questions be asked of Anglo-Saxon donor portraits (and potentially all medieval donor portraits) in which a model is featured. This thesis strives to answer the how instead of the what. And in doing so it has the potential to foster a greater understanding of the image type that spread, by the requests of patrons, throughout the Anglo-Saxon world and the wider medieval world. Beyond cultivating a greater understanding of the medieval donor portrait, this thesis underlines the profound connections between medieval literature and art and highlights the advantages of interdisciplinary scholarship. / text

Thesis advisor: Robin Fleming / This dissertation examines the formation of Christian identity in Europe through the ritual performances of baptism. Baptism was an essential act of social and religious initiation experienced by the majority of people in Europe, yet historians have struggled to understand its administration for ordinary lay participants as Europe transitioned from paganism to Christianity. Rather than a uniform indicator of Christian identity as described in clerical texts and current scholarship, baptism changed dramatically between the sixth and twelfth centuries. I show how what began as a flexible array of diverse religious practices located in watery landscapes, Roman-style baptisteries, portable spoons, lead tubs, and wooden buckets, evolved into a ritual standardized in the stone baptismal font, a form which persists to this day. I deploy an interdisciplinary methodology that engages robustly with church archaeology and art history to demonstrate how baptism created localized religious identities for new converts through its use of diverse ritual places and things. This study challenges our definition of a united medieval Christendom by radically reinterpreting the long-term practice of baptism as a slow process of Christianization in Europe from below. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

Thesis advisor: Robin Fleming / Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester (d. 984) was a reformer of Anglo-Saxon monasticism, but he was also deeply concerned with the religion of ordinary English laypeople. Whether in his promulgation of the cult of saints, vast elaboration of the liturgy, or extensive rebuilding of Winchester’s churches, Æthelwold demonstrated an interest in the lay religion that has been consistently ignored by modern scholars who fixate on his monastic zeal. This concern for the laity is natural in the context of Æthelwold’s own interpretation of the English past, as his goal of an all-monastic English Church necessitated a pastoral role for his reformed monks rather than their strict seclusion from the world. Such a goal was possible because Æthelwold initiated his reform program in the mid tenth century, when corporate religious life still provided the bulk of pastoral care in Winchester and the rest of southwest England, and the organized parish system was only a dim possibility as small local churches began to appear haphazardly in the north and east of the country. Æthelwold’s reforms were therefore very different from similar ones taking place on the continent or even in the sees of his fellow English reformers, and he attempted to recreate an imagined English past very unlike the Church that would eventually result a century later. The influence of his students, however, especially Wulfstan Cantor and the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham, shows that Æthelwold’s unusual interest in lay religion had far reaching consequences for the medieval English Church. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

This study explores some of the implications of the distribution of estates between the landholders of Essex in 1066. Emphasis is placed on the immediate background of land ownership in Essex during the reign of Edward the Confessor, though some attention is paid to the earlier history of the shire. The principal source for the investigation is the pre-Conquest data recorded in the Essex folios of Domesday Book. In the first part the broad outlines of the structure of landholding society are considered. Particular attention is paid to those with large amounts of land, although the less extensive holdings of, freemen and sokemen are also discussed. Charters, will's and other pre-Conquest documents provide information on the earlier tenurial history of some estates, and from them and other evidence a model is proposed of the trends in land tenure in Essex between c900 and 1066. In an appendix identifiable lay landholders are listed with details of their estates, whilst in the body of the text the pre-Conquest holdings of ecclesiastical institutions are examined in detail. The second part of the study considers the evolution of the institutions 'of public administration within the shire, and where relevant the influence upon them of powerful landholders. This influence is seen most clearly in the hundreds, and an attempt is made to reconstruct the earlier history of the 1066 Essex hundreds, in particular the evolution of those in the west of the shire. The varying fortunes of the Essex burhs are considered in the light of the output from their mints. To complete the picture evidence of pre-Conquest private lordship - soke, -and commendation - is examined.

This thesis examines the physical legacy left by the unification of the Kingdom of England during the tenth century, and seeks to redress the way in which the Kingdom of Mercia is often overlooked or discounted in the traditional historical narrative. It principally examines the means by which Æthelflæd of Mercia extended political and military control over the West Midlands, both in terms of physical infrastructure and through ‘soft’ power in terms of economic control and material culture. It uses landscape archaeology, artefactual and textual evidence to compare Mercia with its ally, Wessex, and assess the different means by which Æthelflæd of Mercia and her brother Edward the Elder were able to consolidate and expand their territory, the physical infrastructure they established in order to defend it, and the ways in which these sites developed in response to the changing political, military and economic climates of the later tenth century. It will assess why some defensive sites developed into proto-urban settlements while others disappeared, and the extent to which this was a conscious or planned process. This thesis seeks to overturn the idea that burhs constructed in Mercia were insignificant or unplanned ‘emergency’ sites and instead were part of a sophisticated network of landscapes of defence, reflecting a significant level of manpower and logistical investment on the part of the Mercian state. It will furthermore seek to explore the ways in which the Mercian state supported such a network, how sites were chosen, constructed, maintained and garrisoned, and the impact these sites had both on the local population, in terms of patterns of settlement and material culture, and on the wider political scale.

This thesis examines one labourer group within developing urban society in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries in order to address both its status and whether the internal workplace organisation of this group might reflect on the complexity of an Anglo-Saxon 'state'. In reviewing the minting operation of late Anglo-Saxon England, and the men in charge of those mints, a better picture of the social history of pre-Conquest England is realised. These men, the moneyers responsible for producing the king's coinage, were likely part of the thegnly or burgess class and how they organised themselves might reflect broader trends in how those outside of the artistocracy acted in response to royal directives. In order to address this, a database combining information from multiple catalogues, coin cabinets, and online repositories was developed in Part I and is presented in Part II. The Moneyers of England Database, 973-1086 consists of 3,646 periods of moneyer activity, derived from 28,576 individual coins produced at ninety-nine geographic locations. Parts III and IV provide potential uses for the database through two different types of study. Part III argues that the mints were primarily controlled and operated by families. Pointing to the repetition of the protothemes amongst the moneyers on a large scale across nearly all the mint locations known from the 970s to 1086, I argue that the mints were dominated by a few select families that maintained authority through wars and conquests. Part IV presents two new theories on late Anglo-Saxon mint organisation. The first theory is that groups of moneyers would begin and end activity within the mints together, most often within family units, but regularly in conjunction with other minting families in the same location. The second theory is that these groups would operate in rotation. The moneyers would operate for a set period of time, then withdraw in favour of another member of their dynasty before returning to activity at a later date. I conclude that this was potentially, if not likely, in response to royal imposition on the mints restricting the number of coinages that a moneyer could be responsible for, and take profit on, consecutively. The thesis is structured with a brief introduction and literature review, inclusive of discussion on the status of the moneyers and the concept of an Anglo-Saxon 'state', followed by a methodological section that outlines the creation of the Moneyers of England Database, 973-1086, as well as limitations in the source material. This is followed by the database, two analysis sections, and the conclusion. There are two appendices. The first appendix is an insert diagram of all 425 moneyers in operation in London between 973 and 1086. The second is the coinage record from which this work is derived.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1907. / "A Private Edition Distributed by the University of Chicago Libraries." "Works employed": p. 10-11. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Raw vegetarian food and life reform: Maximilian Bircher-Benner and the Swedish health foods movements. By Motzi Eklöf. Movements for life reform, natural healing, and health foods have persisted in Sweden since the last decades of the 19th century. Stressing the importance of less alcohol and other drugs, a proper diet, and the use of natural healing methods, they have displayed conflicts concerning individual rights to decide in matters concerning one’s own body and health in relation to a medicine and state demands. Swedish movements for natural healing and health foods have developed under influence from leading figures and movements in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, North America, and England. In 1900, the Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner (1867–1939) launched his theory of ”sunlight food”, meaning that uncooked vegetables and fruits were containing the most energy, whereas meat was radically less nourishing. His theories were contrary to contemporary medical and bourgeois culture considering meat as the optimum food, at least for real men. He became an outsider in medicine until the discovery of vitamins in the 1920s lent him some support. His clinic ”Lebendige Kraft” in Zürich received well-to-do clients from all over the world; these were treated with different physical methods, raw vegetarian food, and proper routines for day and night. Stressing the importance of raw vegetarian food, Bircher-Benner influenced vegetarians and food reformers in Sweden during the 20th century. In the 1930s, especially women with connections to the Swedish vegetarian association, founded in 1903, recommended his philosophy of food and natural healing. Menus copied from his books were used in health resorts, vegetarian pensions, and restaurants. But during the decades around World War  II, Are Waerland dominated the Swedish health-food scene, demanding adherence to his very restrictive health food programme. The post-war health movements drew on both Waerland and Bircher-Benner in their food recommendations. This article proposes factors facilitating or counteracting a broader acceptance of Bircher-Benner’s ideas in Sweden. Health resorts and strong lay traditions in the health care field have maintained a tradition of non-invasive and non-pharmacological healing methods. A strained relationship between medical doctors and lay vegetarian spokesmen have made a more serious discussion of the topic difficult. Political associations tied to natural healing in Germany during the 1930s have affected the debate and have probably also restrained a broader acceptance of these ideas. Today, scientific studies have resulted in official nourishment recommendations similar to a previously launched ”health food”.

Thesis--Hamburg. / Bibliography: p. [174]-178.