Worthy of Veneration or Skepticism?: How Europeans Regarded Relics During Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Relics and reliquaries were prevalent in renaissance and reformation Europe until certain theologians began to question the validity, practicality, and true purposes of relics. These theologians emphasized an individual’s faith in God rather than faith in relics, which in turn resulted in a renaissance movement away from reliance on relics.
The Bones of St. Cuthbert: Defining a Saint’s Cult in Medieval Northumbria
This paper investigates the social, political, and religious changes and tensions which surrounded the cult of St. Cuthbert in medieval Northumbria. Specific comparisons are made between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods in English history, and how St. Cuthbert’s cult responded to the Norman Conquest in 1066.
The Names of Islands in the Old Norse Faereyinga Saga and Orkeyinga Saga
The Names of Islands in the Old Norse Faereyinga Saga and Orkeyinga Saga Hilda Radzin (St. John’s University) Literary Onomastics Studies: Volume 5,…
The Heraldic Casket of Saint Louis in the Louvre
The Casket of Saint Louis invokes political and social networks and events relating to the Capetian dynasty in the years before Louis IX reached his majority.
Places to See: Notre Dame – Part I
Part I of my initial visit to stunning Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France.
An Apostolic Vocation: The Formation of the Religious Life for the Dominican Sisters in the Thirteenth Century
The Dominican vocation sprang from complex historical understandings of the vita apostolica, and the Dominican women’s religio should be approached as part of these same contexts and perceptions.
Picturing Maternal Anxiety in the Miracle of the Jew of Bourges
During the middle ages, one of the most popular and most frequently illustrated Miracles of the Virgin Mary was the Miracle of the Jew of Bourges. According to the text of the miracle, the Virgin saves a young Jewish boy after his father throws him into a fiery oven upon learning he attended a Christian mass.
Skirts and Politics: The Cistercian Monastery of Harvestehude and the Hamburg City Council
In 1482, Catharina Arndes lifted up her skirts in front of the archbishop’s chaplain. She was a respectable townswoman from Hamburg, and her action was carried out in defense of the Cistercian monastery of Harvestehude which was close to the city and where several of Catharina’s nieces lived as nuns.
Women do not sit as Judges, or do they? The office of Judge in Vincentius Bellovacensis’ Speculum
It was Charles Homer Haskins (1870-1936) who coined the expression “Renaissance of the twelfth century”. Before him this expression referred more specifically to the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century as nineteenth century Swiss historian Jakob Burckhardt put it.
Feminine Love in the Twelfth Century – A Case Study: The Mulier in the Lost Love Letters and the Work of Female Mystics
This article compares the twelfth-century writings of the secular mulier in the Lost Love Letters with the work of religious female ‘mystics’ to draw comparisons about the way these authors chose to express love.
The Patriarch Alexios Stoudites and the Reinterpretation of Justinianic Legislation against Heretics
Using normative legal sources such as law codes and imperial novels to illuminate Byzantine heresy is a very difficult proposition. One of the great problems in the analysis of Byzantine law in general is that the normative legal sources rarely were adapted to subsequent economic, political, or social conditions.
Hagiography and the Experience of the Holy in the Work of Gregory of Tours
The rich literature associated with the Desert Fathers provides convincing evidence of the important role played by charismatic figures in the transformation of Late Antiquity.
Flee the loathsome shadow: Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and the Medici in Florence
This article examines the changing political landscape of Medicean Florence, from Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464) to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), through the letters of the celebrated neo-Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-99).
Unexpected Evidence concerning Gold Mining in Early Byzantium
One of the consequences of the decline of Roman imperial might was the shortage of slaves at state-run mines. Consequently, criminals were often sentenced to damnatio ad metallum. The need for gold especially soared when the gold solidus was introduced at the beginning of the fourth century.
High-Tech Feudalism: Warrior Culture and Science Fiction TV
“Richard ΠΙ with aliens” is how Cornell (102) describes “Sins of the Father,” an episode of Star Trek: TheNext Generation (hereafter TNG) in which the Klingon warrior Worf, son of Mogh, seeks to restore his family’s honour by exposing and challenging those responsible for falsely accusing his dead father of treason to the Klingon Empire.
The Prologue to Alfred’s Law Code: Instruction in the Spirit of Mercy
The Prologue to Alfred’s Law Code: Instruction in the Spirit of Mercy Michael Treschow Florilegium: Volume 13 (1994) Abstract Alfred’s law code tends…
Intellectual Cartographic Spaces: Alfonso X, the Wise and the Foundation of the Studium Generale of Seville
This dissertation, “Intellectual Cartographic Spaces: Alfonso X, the Wise and the Foundations of the Studium Generale of Seville,” I reevaluate Spain’s medieval history, specifically focusing on the role of Alfonso X and his court in the development of institutions of higher education in thirteenth-century Andalusia.
King’s sister, queen of dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her evangelical network
This study reconstructs the previously unknown history of the most important dissident group within France before the French Reformed Church formed during the 1550s.
Of sagas and sheep: Toward a historical anthropology of social change and production for market, subsistence and tribute in early Iceland
This dissertation deals with the formation of chiefdoms, communities, ecclesiastical institutions and state, and with production for market, subsistence and tribute in early Iceland in the context of climatic change and ecological succession.
Constructing social identity in Renaissance Florence: Botticelli’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’
This study scrutinizes a work within a neglected portion of Botticelli’s oeuvre, examining the ways in which its modest, and somewhat ambiguous, visual cues also construct its sitter’s elevated social identity, while simultaneously protecting it.
Working women in thirteenth-century Paris
This thesis examines the role of women in the Parisian economy in the late thirteenth century.
Women’s monasticism in late medieval Bologna, 1200-1500
This dissertation explores the fluid relationship between monastic women and religious orders. I examine the roles of popes and their representatives, governing bodies of religious orders, and the nunneries themselves in outlining the contours of those relationships.
Places to See: Sainte Chapelle
Travelling to Paris ? Add this beautiful thirteenth century Capetian chapel to your MUST-SEE list for your next visit!
The Hero’s Journey: Beowulf, Film, and Masculinity
Beowulf is one of many examples of a story that employs the rhetoric of the hero. The plight of the main character Beowulf is the focus of the tale, and the tasks that he must overcome throughout the course of the poem provide insight into the development of the character of the hero.
Conflicting expectations: Parish priests in late medieval Germany
The study investigates the expectations various groups in late medieval German society held of their parish priests and how these expectations were mediated through specific relationships.