Religious Life Archive
-
Heorot and the Plundered Hoard: A Study of Beowulf
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsTime and again the Beowulf poet's choice of words and details reveals that he practised his craft within a tradition in which his creativeness was bound and disciplined by the objectiveness of a particular structure of images. We perceive in all the rich variety of his work the unifying effect of the typological imagination. It is in the typological mode of Beowulf that the key to its meaning and artistry is to be found. -
“One Woman with Many Faces”: Imaginings of Mary Magdalen in Medieval and Contemporary Texts
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsThis project explores these contradictory and myriad imaginings of Mary Magdalen, emphasizing particularly the connections to be made between those emerging from the later Middle Ages and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. -
The Virgin Mary in High Medieval England, A Divinely Malleable Woman: Virgin, Intercessor, Protector, Mother, Role Model
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis examines the significance of the Virgin Mary in England between the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century. The primary sources selected indicate the variety of ideas circulating about her during this period. Strictly religious texts such as the Bible and early Christian writings ground Late Medieval beliefs about Mary in their historical context. -
A question of time or a question of theology: A study of the Easter controversy in the Insular Church
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsTo date scholarly research has approached this topic from a medieval historical perspective. It has, however, never been approached from a purely theological stance. Questions regarding the Insular 84-year cycle have occupied scholars over the past one hundred years or so. A review of the literature reveals an advance in understanding the techniques of the computus of the Insular church. -
Best Clothes and Everyday Attire of Late Medieval Nuns
Posted on March 25, 2013 | No CommentsThe habit symbolises humility because it nulifies any difference of estate; it signifies the will to chastity because it disguises the feminine form of the body; and it displays outer obedience to divine com- mands by its timelessly simple cut and fabric of linen or wool. Given this sort of symbolism, fashion and nuns appear to be mutually exclusive themes. -
The Metaphysics of Peter Abelard
Posted on March 24, 2013 | No CommentsI’ll begin with Abelard’s antirealism about universals, since it is the key to his irrealism. It provides the foundation for his conviction that only individuals exist, a thesis that calls for further analysis of the nature of individuals -
Sisters Between: Gender and the Medieval Beguines
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsThe origins of the Beguines can be traced to two important medieval religious reform movements: monastic mysticism and the vita apostolica, or "apostolic life." -
Abelard’s Legacy: Why Theology is not Faith Seeking Understanding
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsIn this paper I will challenge the common definition of the theological task as faith seeking understanding, where the faith of a tradition commandeers the critical enquiry of the theologian. -
BOOKS: Happy St. Patrick Day! New reads to celebrate Medieval Ireland!
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsBOOKS: Happy St. Patrick Day! New reads to celebrate Medieval Ireland! -
Reconsidering the Health Care Provider: Lessons from Medieval Miracle Accounts
Posted on March 13, 2013 | No CommentsUsing medieval canonization inquests, Archambeau will try to answer the seemingly simple question: What did people do when they were sick? -
The Medieval Calendar
Posted on March 13, 2013 | No CommentsCalendars used during the Middle Ages were very different from the simple calendars we use today. In the middle ages people experienced time very differently. For those who could decipher it the medieval calendar was a map of the church year. -
The Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000: Augustinian Historiography, Medieval and Modern
Posted on March 11, 2013 | No CommentsDespite extensive advances in scholarship since 1900, medieval historians continue to accept and repeat this revisionist position, a position that is methodologically jejune and that almost completely ignores the social dynamics of millennial beliefs. -
The Liber Vitae of Durham (BL MS Cotton Domitian A. vii): a discussion of its possible context and use in the later middle ages
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe Durham Liber Vitae belonged in the later Middle Ages to Durham Cathedral Priory and, to understand its context, the history of the communities which produced it must be understood. -
The Vínland sagas as propaganda for the Christian Church
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsOver the last two centuries, the Vínland Sagas have become some of the most discussed of Medieval Nordic documents. There are arguments about every aspect of the sagas: What the name Vínland means, if Vínland existed, where it would have been geographically, and how much of their content is historically accurate. -
The earls in Henry the Second’s reign
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe earldoms of Henry Ills reign can only be understood in the context of their history. The roots of the nature of earldoms in Henry II's reign stretch back beyond the Norman Conquest to England and the Continent before 1066. It was the combination of these two traditions that shaped many of the features of the earldom under the Norman and early Angevin kings of England. -
Reality and Truth in Thomas of York: Study and Text
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe investigation is conducted through a study of opposites into which being is divided. These opposites are principally the one and the many, potency and act, truth and falsity. -
Bernard of Morlaix: the literature of complaint, the Latin tradition and the twelfth-century “Renaissance”
Posted on March 9, 2013 | No CommentsBernard of Morlaix was a monk of the order of Cluny who flourished around 1140. Excerpts from one of his poems appear in some anthologies of medieval Latin verse1 and he is briefly noticed in some works on the twelfth-century renaissance, but he has received little critical attention and only one of his poems has been translated from the Latin. -
Brigit: Goddess, Saint, ‘Holy Woman,’ and Bone of Contention
Posted on March 4, 2013 | No CommentsBrigit1 and Patrick, two saints from the beginnings of Christianity in Ireland in the fifth century CE, retain their popularity with Catholic Christians to this day. -
“The Wrath of the Northmen”: The Vikings and their Memory
Posted on March 2, 2013 | No CommentsThese raiding peoples emerge out of all three Scandinavian homelands--Norway, Sweden, and Denmark--sending off their young men all over the known world in search of wealth and prestige. -
Horses for Courses? Religious Change and Dietary Shifts in Anglo-Saxon England
Posted on February 25, 2013 | No CommentsThe spread of Christianity across England over the course of the Anglo-Saxon period brought new worldviews, ways of acting and dietary habits. -
Animals on Trial
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsThe history of animals in the legal system sketched by Evans is rich and resonant; it provokes profound questions about the evolution of jurisprudential procedure, social and religious organization and notions of culpability and punishment, and funda-mental philosophical questions regarding the place of man within the natural order. -
Scotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsScotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII J. H. Baxter (Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University ofSt. Andrews) Scot’s Magazine (1929) Abstract In the latter half of the month of August,... -
What was the Investiture Controversy a Controversy About?
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis will aim to demonstrate that the Investiture Controversy was primarily a clash originating from fifth century ideas which were put into practice and developed by an eleventh century papacy. -
Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsI shall follow what I feel to be the methodologically sound procedure of examining one case in some detail, while at the same time producing evidence to suggest that elements which are operative in this instance may be operative in others as well. What I should like to focus attention upon are certain ideas of history which were current in the early sixteenth century.  -
Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsSyphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe Eric B. Ross Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 333-337 Abstract While debate continues over the geographical origin of syphilis...
