Browsing by Subject "Middle Ages"
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Item A historiographical and artistic survey of confraternities from the later Middle Ages to the early Renaissance(2005-05) Ziegler, Tiffany A.; D'Amico, Stefano; Howe, John M.The last twenty to thirty years of confraternal research have yielded ground breaking results in the field. However, while historiographical surveys appear throughout the literature of confraternal scholars, both contemporary and past, the works tend to focus on the origins of confraternal studies up through the cultural and social shift of the 1960s. Thus, many modern historians and their contributions to confraternal research have been recently ignored; no body of literature exists which attempts to create a synthesis of these works. I propose that a modern survey of historiographical research is needed before confraternal studies can progress any further. A historiography of modern works would make available to current historians the needed knowledge to proceed in their fields and would bring the scholarship of confraternal historians to the forefront, providing them with the recognition they deserve for their collaborated efforts. Furthermore, a confraternal historiography considering a number of areas and genres would demonstrate the significant role that confraternities played in the past. Furthermore, while the roles of confraternities in society and their implications concerning culture have not been neglected by historians of the present, only just recently historians have put a twist on social and cultural confraternal research in relation to artwork. Artwork commissioned by confraternities can yield explanations that some archival records, such as membership lists, statutes, enrollment charts and death registers cannot. However, even though clearly aware of the benefits of artwork, there has been little exploration in the field of confraternal artwork; thus I contend that efforts should be initiated to bring confraternal artwork and confraternal patronage to the forefront of modern scholarship. I propose that specific confraternal images can produce meanings about the confraternities that in turn provide information concerning the culture in which they inhabited. It is thus necessary to perform a cultural analysis of confraternal artworks grounded in cultural theory and iconography in order to understand confraternities and society. The best evidence for the culture and cultural changes is confraternal artwork from the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance as the visual sources with their contractual counterparts provide a clear transition of the events that occurred. However, before delving into an analysis of the works of art, it will first be necessary to examine the evolving relationships between the institutional Church and confraternities in general, which will provide a context for the confraternities and their artwork. With the foundation in place, the study of confraternal artwork may proceed. Overall, the analysis will allow for a closer examination of not just the culture of a particular confraternity, but also the cultural values, ideals, and practices of an entire community in one period of time. Furthermore, the examination of confraternal artwork will prove important, as it will demonstrate the unique power of confraternities.Item A delightful inheritance: female agency and the Disputatio tradition in the Hortus deliciarum(2009-08) Parker, Sarah C.; Holladay, Joan A.; Newman, Martha G., 1958-The Hortus deliciarum (ca. 1170-ca. 1194, destroyed 1870) was an encyclopedic salvation history created for the canonesses at the Augustinian convent of Hohenburg by their abbess Herrad. Despite the strong role of images in the canonesses’ reception of the manuscript, the Hortus illuminations have thus far not merited a critical consideration. In this thesis, I analyze major individual illuminations in the Hortus as well as the manuscript’s entire structure, and I suggest that Herrad designed the Hortus around contemporary apocalyptic ideas, such as those of Joachim of Fiore, while also illustrating the importance of debate and discussion to the body Christian. The overall composition of the Hortus showed the canonesses that God has chosen to share his knowledge with them. In significant individual images, Herrad expressed that they were to exercise this divine knowledge through debate of theological principles. In the Hortus, debate was shown as originating with Christianity’s Jewish desert predecessors, and the canonesses were encouraged to consider themselves as heirs of this intellectual tradition. Debate appeared as endemic to Christianity and essential to the continued life and prosperity of the Church. In stressing the importance of intellectual activity, while also implying that the canonesses were part of the intellectual elect, the Hortus exerted power that transgressed the library walls and affected the ways the Hohenbourg canonesses performed their faith and understood their responsibility as Christians.Item The Gradual of St. Yrieix in eleventh-century Aquitaine(2011-05) Sherrill, William Manning; Nardini, Luisa; Dell'Antonio, Andrew; Frazier, Alison; Olivieri, Guido; Tusa, Michael C.During the eleventh century the Aquitanian monastery of St. Yrieix, located forty kilometers south of Limoges, acquired a new gradual, a manuscript containing the liturgical Mass chants for the year. The Gradual of St. Yrieix, now at the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale (Pa903), includes both text and music, redacted with the musical notation typical of the region of Aquitaine. The objective of this research is to analyze Pa903 as a document of liturgical musical practice and as a participant in the historical events of its region and time. While the Gregorian chant repertory dominates the gradual, this dissertation addresses the neo-Gregorian chants of Pa903, composed in the period following the dissemination of Gregorian chant throughout Europe. These neo-Gregorian chants were open to the influence of the contemporary regional musical style and cultural traditions surrounding St. Yrieix. Chapter II reviews the backdrop of historical events surrounding Pa903, focusing on the reform and expansion at St. Yrieix and its transition from a monastery to a chapter of canons. The musical and liturgical characteristics of Pa903 (Chapter III) show that St. vii Yrieix favored its senior patron St. Martin of Tours and St. Aredius (its patron saint) above St. Martial of Limoges (a powerful neighbor) and presented in the gradual a community of saints with strong regional influence. Chapters IV and V analyze the concordances of antiphons, tropes, prosulas, prosas, and neo-Gregorian Mass chants of Pa903 with those of the Aquitanian graduals and other sources throughout Europe. The tropes of the Proper and Ordinary, the complete repertory of prosulas and prosas, and the neo-Gregorian Mass chants of Pa903 are collected together here for the first time outside of Pa903. The neo-Gregorian chants are found in the sanctoral, temporal, and the ritual Masses and include a group of chants that reflects textual and musical elements of the prior Gallican tradition. The chant repertory of the gradual also presents a subgroup of forty-nine antiphons, prosas, prosulas, and neo-Gregorian Mass chants found only in Pa903, documented here with musical examples.Item Monstrous Silhouette: The Development of the Female Monster in British Literature(2017-07-11) Woodworth, Savannah J.; Courtney, LeeIn this thesis, I analyze the effects of social, political, and economic change and the historical effects of said change on the literary representations of female monsters as portrayed by male authors in medieval and Victorian literature. To contextualize the literature selected, each chapter involves extensive research which I argue influenced the presentation of the characters selected. Each chapter also includes extensive textual analysis to show direct examples in the text relating to the historical context, followed by a section tying the ideology of the thesis with the context provided in the historical and textual analysis sections. The purpose of this analysis is to demonstrate the repercussions of social change on the social standings of women and the manifestation of those changes within literature as a form of expression for the conflicting representations of the nature of femininity and the anxieties of the male writers in these moments of upheaval. At the beginning of this analysis, there was some expectation for a direct correlation between masculine anxieties and increases in female independence resulting in wholly negative portrayals of women, resulting on monstrous images; however, each character, despite their clearly monstrous traits, was nuanced in a way that was frequently empathetic, particularly when placed within the historical context of social change.Item St Vincent and St Peter : location and the musical connection between two feasts in Ben 35(2011-05) Gattozzi, Bibiana Carmela Pia; Nardini, Luisa; Tusa, Michael C.In the Beneventan region, chant manuscripts and the chants they transmitted served as a documentary ritualization of political and liturgical transition. In the twelfth century, circumstances relegated the Beneventan monastery of San Pietro extra muros, for which the chant manuscript Ben 35 was destined, and its parent monastery San Vincenzo al Volturno, to liminal frontier positions between political and liturgical factions. Newly-composed music such as that found in Ben 35 anchored the alliegances of these monasteries within a fluctuating political and liturgical context at a time when ties to Rome and assertion of local practices were both necessary to assure the continuation of a monastery's influence. Thus Ben 35's unusual features are more easily explained when greater consideration is given to the context of its origin and destination. In particular, the destination of Ben 35 played a very important role in determining the musical styles of the chants that were associated with the feasts of Saint Vincent and Saint Peter, saints whose cults were most closely tied to the location of the manuscript.Item Staging medievalisms : touching the Middle Ages through contemporary performance(2013-05) Gutierrez, Christina Lynn; Canning, Charlotte, 1964-Staging Medievalisms analyzes how twentieth- and twenty-first century performance constructs the Middle Ages. This work is in conversation with medievalism, the academic field concerned with the diverse ways post-medieval societies have re-imagined medieval narratives and tropes, often in service of their own values. As a result of centuries worth of re-definition, the term "medieval" is unstable, referring simultaneously to a fairytale prehistory and a dark age of oppression. I argue that performance, both in theatrical productions and in medieval-focused tourist spaces, allows an affective connection between the medieval past and the present, casting the Middle Ages as an inherently flexible backdrop for contemporary political and social concerns. In tourist spaces and plays about the Middle Ages, the performing body becomes the site where the medieval and the modern touch. I conduct close readings of six productions and three public spaces which stage the Middle Ages, examining which particular versions of the medieval they create, how they stage moments of historiographical contact, and how each uses the medieval to imagine their own historical contexts. Chapter one provides an overview of medievalism and its connection to performance studies, and subsequent chapters take up contemporary productions of medieval history, legend, and fantasy, respectively. Chapter two examines three recent stagings of Shakespeare's medieval history play Henry V, a work which stages two opposing versions of the medieval simultaneously. The Royal Shakespeare Company (1994), National Theatre (2003), and Austin, Texas (2009) productions offer commentary on modern warfare, using Henry's medieval battles as both evidence and setting. Chapter three analyses representations of the Holy Grail in Mort d'Arthur (2010), Spamalot (2005), and Proof (2001). Each re-imagines the Grail as a symbol of achievement and power, drawing different conclusions about contemporary society's need for the mystical. Chapter four takes up performances of the Middle Ages in the public sphere, examining how Disneyland, Medieval Times, and the Renaissance Faire offer visitors varying degrees of freedom to experience the medieval through their own bodies. Throughout, I argue that performance encourages affective connections to the medieval past as a reflection of contemporary desires.Item The Venetian Galley of Flanders: From Medieval (2-Dimensional) Treatises to 21st Century (3-Dimensional) Model(2012-07-16) Higgins, Courtney RosaliNautical archaeologists and scholars often try to recreate how ships were built and maneuvered. Due to the delicate nature of older wooden vessels, there is often little archaeological evidence remaining to aid in these studies, and researchers must supplement what little they have with other resources, such as texts. By using computer programs to synthesize and enhance the information in the texts, scholars can better understand the vessel and explore questions that even hull remains may not be able to address. During the High to Late Middle Ages, Venice was a key city for trade and commerce. Its location on the Adriatic Sea connected merchants throughout mainland Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Since its founding in the low Middle Ages, Venice has been connected to the sea, leading to a long history of seafaring and shipbuilding. By the end of the Middle Ages, Venice had established several trade routes throughout the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and one long sea route into the Atlantic, to Lisbon, Flanders, and London. Although no archaeological evidence of these galleys have been found, several contemporary texts describe the merchant galleys of the 15th century. Two of these texts, dating to the first half of the 15th century discuss the dimensions the galley: The book of Michael of Rhodes and the book of Giorgio "Trombetta" da Modone. Perhaps complementary copies of the same original, these texts contain enough information to reconstruct a 3-dimensional model of the galley of Flanders's hull, in this case using off-the-shelf software ((Rhinoceros). From this computer model the vessel can then be analyzed for volumetric information in order to better understand the hull capacity and how the ship was laden.