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Crisis and Regeneration: the Conversos of Majorca, 1391-1416
Posted on June 10, 2013 | No CommentsThis dissertation investigates the economic, social and political factors that promoted Jewish identification among the first two generations of conversos in Majorca following their baptism in 1391. -
Broken April and Albanian Blood Feud
Posted on June 8, 2013 | No CommentsTheir tribal codes are recorded in a Medieval text known as the Kanun. The Kanun dictates many facets of life, one of which is the custom known as 'blood feud.' -
The Calamitous Fourteenth Century in England: All Doom and Gloom?
Posted on May 28, 2013 | No CommentsThis was a fantastic paper given at the Crown and Country in Late medieval England session at KZOO. There were only two papers but both were interesting and enjoyable. This paper delved into the history of science in late medieval England and examined why the fourteenth century, a time that is usually synonymous with doom and gloom, plague and uprising, wasn't all that bad upon closer observation. -
Theft, Homicide and Crime in Late Anglo-Saxon Law
Posted on May 27, 2013 | No CommentsIn order to understand these issues properly we must first consider our own ideas about ‘crime’, a deeply problematic term for the period before the late twelfth century -
Danish Penal Law in the Middle Ages: Cases of Homicide and Woundings
Posted on May 25, 2013 | No CommentsIn the provincial laws, a killing was not simply a killing. The penalty imposed on the killer depended on the conditions under which the killing had taken place. -
Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion
Posted on May 24, 2013 | No CommentsThe object of my studies was to determine whether women in the early medieval Germanic West (could have) committed abortion, when confronted with an unwanted or inconvenient pregnancy. -
Mental Disability and Intellectual Impairment in the Middle Ages: Some Preliminary Research Findings
Posted on May 19, 2013 | No CommentsThis interesting paper was one of the four given in the Mental Health in Non-medical Terms session at KZOO. It looked at philosophy, iconography and the way mental disability was viewed in the Middle Ages. -
Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
Posted on May 17, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious. -
George R. R. Martin’s Quest for Realism in A Song of Ice and Fire
Posted on May 14, 2013 | No CommentsThis was my last session of KZOO this year and it was the perfect way to end a great conference. This series was dedicated to examining medievalism in fantasy literature with the dominant topic being George R. R. Martin and Tolkien. -
Chivalry and Public Disorder in Thirteenth-Century Florence
Posted on May 13, 2013 | No CommentsThe was the second of two fabulous papers given at the my first session on Medieval violence. Whereas the first paper in this series looked at violence in the university setting, this one tackled violence in an elite sphere - Florentine knights and their retinues. -
Student Violence at the University of Oxford
Posted on May 9, 2013 | No CommentsMy first foray of KZOO 2013 couldn't have been off to a better start with, “I just don’t want to die without a few scars”: Medieval Fight Clubs, Masculine Identity, and Public (Dis)order. There were only two papers in this session and both were riveting. I felt like I couldn't type fast enough to get it all in! The first paper was given by Professor Andrew Larsen of Marquette University. Professor Larsen published a book on high and late medieval student violence and the Saint Scholastica's Day Riot at Oxford university. -
Charity in the Middle Ages
Posted on May 3, 2013 | No CommentsLecture by Valerie L. Garver, given at Northern Illinois University on April 3, 2013 -
Access to the Margins: Outlawry and Narrative spaces in medieval Icelandic outlaw sagas
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No CommentsIn a society where social ties and solidarity were needed in order to endure the unwelcoming weather and landscape, exclusion and isolation appear as the worst punishment that man can inflict to man, even worse than death. -
Signs and Senses: Diagnosis and Prognosis in Early Medieval Pulse and Urine Texts
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No Commentsin which they were made. These early medieval anthologies are quite different from Scholastic anthologies such as the Artkella, which were compiled as curriculum texts for the new, formalized medical instruction of the nascent universities. -
The Seven Deadly Sins: Some Problems of Research
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No CommentsIn the following pages, I should like to point out a number of aspects or areas which my own study of acedia has convinced me must and can be fruitfully explored.The account does not aim at comprehensiveness; certainly, other students of mediaeval thought and literature will be able to point out other desiderata. If it merely revives some interest in its subject, it will have fulfilled its purpose. -
The Eucharistic Man of Sorrows in Late Medieval Art
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No CommentsEucharistic devotion also found it's ways of visual expression in the art of the period. Numerous new iconographical types were created in late medieval art for the purpose of visualizing the mystery of the Eucharist. -
The commons in medieval England
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsWhy was the same term 'commons' used to describe both a part of the English legislature and a large gathering of rebellious people? How had this double meaning come about and what did it imply for the workings of politics in late medieval England? -
Identifying Women Proprietors in Wills from Fifteenth-Century London
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsMost Londoners lodged their post obit requests with the Husting Court, the county court of London. The testators were primarily wealthy artisans and merchants, since one needed to possess a substantial amount of property in order to register the details of the division of that property. -
“Walkynge in the mede” : Chaucerian gardens and the recasting of the Edenic fall
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsIn this thesis, I intend to illustrate how Chaucer uses his knowledge of garden traditions, both biblical and practical, to discuss the concept of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of humanity. -
Penance and Peter Abelard’s Move Within
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsOf the many individuals in the twelfth century whose fame in their own time has reached down to ours, figures like Thomas Becket, Frederick Barbarossa and Bernard of Clairvaux, there is no one whose fame surpassed that of Master Peter Abelard and no figure more public. Indeed, fame was something Abelard coveted, something he consciously built. -
Medieval Astrology and The Buke of the Sevyne Sagis
Posted on April 20, 2013 | No CommentsIt is useful to begin by comparing the way the sages are initially described to the Emperor in the Latin, Middle English, and Middle Scots texts. Although the Middle Scots text is not connected to the English ones, they serve as a useful backdrop to illustrate the singular nature of the Scottish version of the story. -
Conflict in the Parish: Antagonistic Relations Between Clerics and Parishioners
Posted on April 19, 2013 | No CommentsParishioners repeatedly complained about suffering under the rule of a petty tyrant who held grudges and exploited his power to administer the sacraments, or about the surly, combative temperament of their priest who was prone to fighting and creating discord within the parish. -
Symbel: The Heathen Drinking Ritual?
Posted on April 19, 2013 | No CommentsExamination of symbel in Anglo-Saxon society from archaeological and literary evidence and its role in modern Heathen/Pagan societies -
Rune Stones and Magnate Farms: The Viking Age in Vadsbo Hundred
Posted on April 16, 2013 | No CommentsWhat is the relationship between the Viking Age magnate farms and local place names? What of the numerous Rune stones, burial mounds, surface finds, and ancient monuments? Are they also tied to subsequent names? Can they help us place farms and other sites? -
The Symbolic Meaning of Sword and Palio in Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual Entries: The Case of Seville
Posted on April 16, 2013 | No CommentsIf I have spend some time establishing the semantic field in which these terms appear, it is because I wish to emphasize the malleability of concepts such as symbols and rituals, particularly when applied to the articulation of powers Moreover, these meanings and intents depend often on the context, temporal and geographical location.