Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law
Unfortunately, many historians not specializing in the study of the ancient Irish law tracts have been unaware of the textual inaccuracies of the O’Curry – O’Donovan translations and have continued to incorporate their older unscientific work, and that of their editors, into their own work.
Tolkien’s Imaginary Languages
Tolkien’s extensive knowledge of world languages both ancient and modern lent itself to his creation of the artificial languages that add so much realistic depth to his fictional writing
Language and Legend in the Fantasy Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien
There was something so real in the languages that he created, and critics wanted to find the inspirations behind Tolkien‘s worlds. Elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, and various other creatures occupied the pages of his books, but the languages he created were complex and had real elements in them. Examples of his invented languages were those spoken by the Elves, Sindarin and Quenya.
”Beowulf” and the Influence of Old English on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is set in the fictional but incredibly vast and detailed universe of Middle-Earth. Tolkien has put great effort in developing an impossibly gigantic realm peopled by many diverse races. Of the immeasurable number of characters and locations present in Tolkien’s work, many bear a name deeply rooted in Old English.
The Knighting of Henry, son of William the Conqueror, in 1086
This paper was part of SESSION VIII: Power & Politics in the Long Twelfth Century, at the Haskins Conference at Boston College.
“My trouthe for to holde—allas, allas!”: Dorigen and Honor in “The Franklin’s Tale”
We can see from the beginning of the Franklin’s Tale that honor as pub- lic esteem is an overriding concern for Arveragus, who qualifies his exceedingly courtly marriage vow, swearing always to remain Dorigen’s servant in love, with the condition that he retain the public appearance of lordly husband, “That wolde he have for shame of his degree”.
The Three Recensions of Eriugena’s Versio Dionysii
However, as G. Théry later discovered, Traube’s point of departure—the citations of Dionysius in Hincmar’s treatise on predestination—was faulty. Since Traube published his notes on the manuscripts of the Versio, Théry has proven that the citations in Hincmar’s Liber de praedestinatione come from Hilduin’s translation rather than that of Eriugena.
‘In the Beginning’: The London Medieval Graduate Network Inaugural Conference
This is a summary of the The London Medieval Graduate Network Inaugural Conference by Rachel Scott. The conference was held on November 2nd at King’s College London.
Medieval Book History Week Lecture: “Practical Latin and Formal English in the 14th-15th Centuries”
This lecture is part of Medieval Book History Week. Renown Professor Jeremy Catto spoke about literacy and language in England during the later Middle Ages at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto.
Gesturing in the Early Universities
A notable feature of research into the early universities is that it usually pays close attention to the oral and literary traditions that underpinned scholastic education. By focusing exclusively upon these logocentric traditions, however, the significance of the word (whether written or spoken) in late medieval pedagogy has often been over- emphasized. In this essay I wish to correct this perspective by investigating the use of gestures in early university education as a non-verbal means of communication.
Townscape as text: the topography of social interaction in Fethard, county Tipperary, AD 1300-1700
The idea that complex social order in the past can be ‘read’ in the built environment, and indeed in material culture – tangible artefacts and landscape phenomena – in general, is a foundation of contemporary archaeology and historical geography.
Re-writing discourse features: speech acts in Heliand
Though extremely fascinating and very appealing, the theory of the saxonization and northernization of the Gospel has ended up permeating every single level upon which an analysis of the poem can be carried out, becoming a sort of a priori starting point that may lead scholars to over-interpretation and, therefore, hinder them from developing a perhaps deeper insight into the poem.
The Arthur of the chronicles
Even if we cannot accept the claim made by Geoffrey in his introduction that his putative source was ‘attractively composed to form a consecutive andorderly narrative’, he certainly made extensive use ofWelsh genealogies andking-lists.
Hellenism and the Shaping of the Byzantine Empire
While the role of Byzantine Hellenism on the art, literature, and society of the Empire has been the subject of tremendous study, the question of its origins has, nonetheless, rarely been raised, and the strongly Hellenic Byzantine identity seems, to a large extent, to have been taken for granted historiographically.
The Riddle of Gollum: Was Tolkien Inspired by Old Norse Gold, the Jewish Golem, and the Christian Gospel?
I would like to speculate on Tolkien’s sources for Gollum. As a start, it is likely that Tolkien’s conscious sources for Gollum were the same as his sources for ents.
Medieval Urban Literacy: Questions and Possibilities
In the Middle Ages, in towns one seems to have had more chance of being confronted with writing than elsewhere. Certain urban milieus participating in written culture, however, have caught the scholars’ attention more than others. Studies of the urban communes of northern Italy have suggested a direct link between the reception of the written word in daily life and the emergence of literate mentalities.
Hopkins and Early English Riddling: Solving The Windhover?
In this article I will demonstrate that The Windhover has strong formal similarities with early English riddling. This genre, which has very little in common with modern riddles, has a range of distinctive formal conventions which, I argue, are also present in The Windhover, including an “entitled solution,” “kennings” and the use of formulae.
Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature
Madness has been long misrepresented in medieval studies. Assertions that conceptions of mental illness were unknown to medieval people, or that all madmen were assumed to be possessed by the devil, were at one time common in accounts of medieval society.
The Norman Conquest and Anglo-Saxon literacy
Michael Clanchy, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the IHR, takes a fresh look at the effects of the Norman Conquest
Runic Magic
A witty, not to say mischievous, Viking archaeologist has defined the first law of runic studies as ‘for every inscription there shall be as many interpretations as there are runologists studying it.’
Christian Cato: A Middle English Translation of the Disticha Catonis
It is possible that this translation is the result of an exercise by a not very gifted schoolboy.
The Evolution Of English
A video lecture on the origin and vagaries of the English language up to the 15th century
Sovereign Subjects, Feudal Law, and the Writing of History
The early historiography of feudal law coalesced as the point of articulation for a discourse of time (the rejection/reclamation of a “barbaric” past) and a discourse of power (the theorization of the sovereign relation), and ultimately yielded a period concept foundational to “modern” theories of state.