Search

With hagiography as a site of fantasy and didacticism, disruptive bodies could not only 'hide in plain sight' but explore and push the boundaries on how holiness could be defined and reconstructed. This thesis argues that the saint's body acts as a mirror, performing as both a model of imitation and a reflection of social structures and constraints. The wide dissemination and popularity of saints' lives throughout medieval Europe reflects the importance of the saint in the clerical and lay communities. By studying vernacular saints' lives from the Gilte Legende (c. 1438) and popular English hagiographers, such as John Lydgate and Osbern Bokenham, my research provides a nuanced and historical-sensitive reading of Luce Irigaray's argument that dominant discourse is male-gendered due to the appropriation of the divine in man's image. I have examined a range of hagiographies, from male kings to virgin martyrs, mother saints to trans* saints, alongside key trends in devotional practices, such as the feminisation of Christ's body and the meditation of Mary as a model of sacrifice. I have addressed the gendered frameworks of the period. In particular, the construction of the male body as default and the female body as secondary and humoral theory, which determined the female body as a porous, opened space in need of protection against internal and external sin. I also engage with key scholarship in the field from Caroline Walker Bynum, Amy Hollywood, and Karma Lochrie. My research concludes that the saint's body is envisioned as a site of identification for the shared flesh of Mary and Christ. This flesh can be read as a 'genre' - an embodied text that dramatizes and disrupts gendered structures, disconnected from gendered binarism it emulates the one-sex body model of the middle ages.

This doctoral dissertation investigates the writings of the Venerable Bede (673-735) in the context of miracles and the miraculous. It begins by exploring the patristic tradition through which he developed his own historical and hagiographical work, particularly the thought of Gregory the Great in the context of doubt and Augustine of Hippo regarding history and truth. It then suggests that Bede had a particular affinity for the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as models for the writing of specifically ecclesiastical history. The use of sources to attest miracle narratives in six hagiographies known to Bede from Late Antiquity are explored before applying this knowledge to Bede and five of his early Insular contemporaries. The research is rounded off by a discussion of Bede’s use of miracles in the context of reform, particularly his desire to provide adequate pastoral care through his understanding of the ideal bishop best exemplified by Cuthbert and John of Beverley. By examining Bede and the miraculous not only through the lens of his predecessors but also among his contemporaries, this thesis ultimately positions Bede as an innovative Anglo-Saxon scholar, though one clearly conscious of the traditions within which he was working.

The ordines romani are products of a ninth-century attempt to correct liturgy across Europe. Hitherto, scholarship has almost exclusively focused on them as sources for the practices of the city of Rome, narrowly defined, disregarding how they were received creatively and reinterpreted in a set of fascinating manuscripts which do not easily fit into traditional categories. This thesis re-envisages these special texts as valuable testimonies of intent and principle. In the past few decades of scholarship, it has been made very clear that what occurred under the Carolingians in the liturgy did not involve the imposition of the Roman rite from above. What was ‘Roman’ and ‘correct’ was decided by individuals, each in their own case, and they created and edited texts for what they needed. These individuals were part of intensive networks of exchange, and, broadly, they agreed on what they were attempting to accomplish. Nevertheless, depending on their own formation, and the atmosphere of their diocese, the same ritual content could be interpreted in numerous different ways. Ultimately, this thesis aims to demonstrate the usefulness of applying new techniques of assessing liturgical manuscripts, as total witnesses whose texts interpret each other, to the ninth century. Each of the ordo romanus manuscripts of the ninth century preserves a fascinating glimpse into the process of working out what ‘correct’ liturgy looked like, by people intensely invested in that proposition. Through them, we can reconceptualise the Carolingian achievement in liturgy, more sympathetically to the great diversity on the ground, but also to the broader goals which united all of these celebrants and intellectuals. In these texts, we can see how the Carolingians really understood the Roman practices they revered, and how they brought this special holiness to their own cathedrals and monasteries through richly creative re-enactment, not thoughtless replication.

This thesis focuses on strengthening the Christian presence in the Holy Land that has been in existence for more than 2,000 years. The Christian presence there is not only about maintaining and preserving the holy shrines related to Christianity. It is also about maintaining and preserving the local Christian congregations and the Christian communities located in Palestine and Israel. These groups have had a series of challenges resulting in a critical decline in the Christian population. The research presented here applies a SWOT analysis to the history, current reality of the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the challenges that influence its future. The benefit of using this approach allows for a concrete analysis of the problems that face the Christian community from the Palestinian-Israel conflict, economic instability, social problems, and the Christian cultural predicament, identified from the literature. The outcome of the analysis is translated into strategic solutions and actions that can be incorporated in programmes and projects to be implemented within, and by, the local Christian communities. These strategic solutions aim to revitalise the indigenous Christian presence in Palestine and Israel and encourage the development of their social, political, and cultural existence, with the hope of obtaining justice, peace and reconciliation.

This thesis seeks to illustrate the substantial contribution which John Owen, Bishop of St. David's, made to the campaign against the disestablishment of the Anglican Church within Wales, and the foundation of the Church in Wales. Owen's significant contribution to this important period within Welsh ecclesiastical history has not been acknowledged. This thesis demonstrates that Owen played an invaluable role not only in opposing the various measures which sought to disestablish, disendow and dismember the Anglican Church, but also in preparing the Church for its new disestablished status following the successful passing of the disestablishment measure in 1914. The thesis draws on the extensive pamphlet material which was published by Owen during his episcopacy, a resource which has largely remained unused, which provides the basis for the distinctive voice which he provided during this period of significant religious and political change. Through the substantial use of these materials, together with other contemporary and scholarly work, it is clear that Owen's significant involvement in the debates was a crucial element of the Church's response to its opponents. Owen vigorously demonstrated through political argument and factual detail, the Church's position in respect of a wide range of issues, which encompassed the disestablishment debate, and he remained committed to facilitating a positive beginning for the Church upon its disestablishment in 1920. Through the exploration of Owen's life and work, this thesis provides insight into the disestablishment campaign from an Anglican perspective, it offers new insight into the history of the foundation of the Church in Wales, and is a contribution to the history of Christianity in Wales in the twentieth century.

John of Damascus was an early eighth century theologian in the Jerusalem Patriarchate. His family supplied financial administrators in Syro-Palestine for most of the seventh century, who were involved in surrendering Damascus to the Arabs if not also to the Persians. They thrived in the sectarian environment under the Umayyads. Numerous Greek Lives paint John in legendary terms; however, these are late and unreliable. I deconstruct the Lives decoupling his timeline from Byzantine Iconoclasm, arguing that there is no evidence and good reason to think that he did not leave the Arab administration because of vexed piety, persecution or administrative language change. Rather, focusing on the chronicler's treatment of John's family, I argue that John left office for his own reasons. I propose that John was instrumental in a quid pro quo: cathedral for patriarchate negotiation. Consequently, the Arabs built the Damascus Mosque on the site of the cathedral church of St John the Baptist, and the (dyothelite) Chalcedonian party moved to Jerusalem, where they reestablished the Jerusalem Patriarchate. Thus, I argue the context of John's polemical works is Jerusalem and patriarchal policy. Further, I argue that John was commissioned to produce something like 'proto-school' texts in the context of debate in the Anastasis with internal Maronite and external West and East Syrian interlocutors. Then I look at one example of John's theological creativity to show how this context impinged on his theological program. John appropriates Maximus the Confessor's term perichoresis and reduces its scope to the Incarnation while moving it into the doctrine of God for the first time. I show that he does this for polemical reasons in order to contravene each of his interlocutors with a simple biblical rhetorical model providing Chalcedonian monks in debate with a simple formula against better educated foes. This thesis demonstrates that reading John out of context fails to appreciate his creative response to these local exigencies.

Acknowledging their powerful visual element, theological historian Bernard McGinn maintains that medieval saints’ lives are ‘something like modern film’. My thesis interrogates this assertion by bringing theoretical perspectives from twenty-first century film studies to analyse the Latin biographies of the group known as the ‘Holy Women of Liège’. Commonly (though not always accurately) considered to be ‘beguines’, these women were practitioners of a new form of female spiritual practice that emerged in the thirteenth century in the Low Countries. Practitioners of this new form of devotion typically lived unenclosed in semi-organised communities (beguinages). They embraced work in society, such as tending the sick and the poor, while simultaneously devoting themselves to God. Written shortly after the protagonists’ death by a collection of anonymous and clerical authors, the Liège vitae are filled with dramatic visions of God and intense physical unions with Christ which run alongside, and justify, tales of the women’s involvement in social, political, and religious spheres. These texts — controversial and polemical in their own time and since — demonstrate the problematic division of body and soul, Christ and human, in the period, revealing the potential of text to transmit visual experiences. Following the advice of medievalist Stephen G. Nichols, my analyses of these texts consider medieval scholarship in conversation with modern theories and questions. Recent developments in visual theory allow for fresh perspectives on the conceptualisation and function of the holy Liégeoises’ divine visions. I include chapters focusing on different strands of such theory: embodied spectatorship, the relationship of film to time and mortality, celebrity studies, and digital environments. Through theoretically informed close readings of the vitae, I argue for a spectrum of visual experience running from the medieval to the modern period, a non-hierarchical and interconnected series of possible viewing positions which inform both medieval and modern experiences.

The subject of my thesis is a little-studied hagiographical work that gives important insights into rewriting processes and their significance in medieval textual culture. The anonymous Life of Christina of Hane, a thirteenth-century Premonstratensian nun from the Palatinate, is an example of bridal mysticism which combines the medieval tradition of the reception of the Song of Songs with hagiographic elements. A codicological and palaeographical analysis of the only manuscript shows it to be a sixteenth-century copy, but the type of mysticism and the theological questions that it discusses suggest that the text was initially composed in the thirteenth century, when Christina is thought to have lived. The theological and spiritual ideas in the text belong to the wider context of communicating the transcendental within the world. My thesis uses performative language analysis to address the problems of textuality and authorization in the Life of Christina of Hane. It yields new insights into the ways in which this mystical text makes use of hagiographic strategies, how gender and vernacular theology are linked, how liturgical elements support the text’s pragmatic nature, and how somatic spirituality is reflected on an allegorical level in the embodiment of God’s bride. An assessment of three communicative aspects – medial, narrative, and allegorical – highlights the textualization of the mystical experience. The appellative structure of Christina’s text invites the reader to engage with the text. This study provides the first comprehensive interpretation of the text on Christina of Hane. It compares it to other mystical texts, to a German–Latin prayerbook, and to a fragmentary legend about Mary Magdalene. It challenges existing judgments about Christina’s biography and offers alternative solutions founded in the latest scholarship on female mystical literature.

The first Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, wrote his pioneering Ecclesiastical History in the early 4th century, just after the western emperor Constantine’s “conversion” to Christianity. It was a history born of Eusebius’ present and designed for the future. Reading Eusebius and the Ecclesiastical History within the second sophistic movement, I argue that Eusebius’ picture of Christian history appropriated the past to fundamentally re-imagine the essence of Christian authority. Eusebius’ descriptions of past Christians used them as exemplars of a new model of Christian leadership designed for his 4th century context. Eusebius was writing in the first place for the Christian clergy; elite provincial Christians who shared the mores and stereotypes of their elite non-Christian neighbours. He therefore presented a model of Christian authority not based around the extreme violence of martyrdom and asceticism which had characterised the charismatic heroes of earlier 2nd and 3rd century Christian literature. It was based instead on a traditional elite rhetoric of temperance, learned through paideia and manifested in care for dependents. Around this thread Eusebius built his Empire-wide church.

This thesis seeks to provide a grassroots study of the diocese of Middlesbrough (1779-1992), in order to contribute to the history of the English Catholic community since it emerged from the Penal Times. Secondly, it is an examination of the manifestation of revivalism and renewal in Catholic devotional practice. The geographical extent of the study covers an area of Yorkshire with a strong recusant history, and that period has been well-served in Catholic historiography. However, writing on the period following the easing of the Penal Laws on Catholics and into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is remarkable for the paucity of references to the diocese and the area that it covers. Therefore this study sheds light upon a particular Catholic community that has been largely invisible to historians. Although the Catholic community itself might appear to be invisible, the devotional practice within it offers many insights, such as the extent to which the social culture influenced the practice of faith. Therefore it teases out and examines the changing nature of devotional practice, and compares it to aspects of Evangelical revivalism that provided the surrounding religious culture. It also examines the influences that came to bear upon the community itself, assessing their importance in the revival and renewal of faith of the people within it. By examining the history of Catholic devotional practice in this area of Yorkshire, it comes to the conclusion that revivalism and renewal are integral elements in Catholic devotion and as a result Catholics and Evangelicals have more in common with each other than their adherents have been ready to acknowledge.

This thesis examines the relationship between denominational affiliation, class and gender in the city of Edinburgh between 1850 and 1905. The period was chosen because socially it was a time of transition from a semi-rural economy to one of rapid population growth, urbanisation and economic diversification. Account has also been taken of the political context, as ministers and elders, especially from dissenting congregations, played a leading role in the movements for social and political reform, both locally and nationally. In ecclesiastical terms, the Established Church of Scotland was recovering from the effects of the Disruption of 1843, which had broken up the unity of the Church and led to intense inter-denominational strife. Towards the end of the period, the first steps leading to Presbyterian reunion were under way, culminating in the union of the United Presbyterian and Free Churches in 1900. This was also a time of religious revivals, first from 1858-60, then with Moody and Sankey, especially their first campaign in 1873-74. The so-called ‘Welsh’ revival of 1905 also impacted on some Edinburgh churches. The thesis also brings out the close links between these revival movements and social welfare concern among church members. Although Presbyterianism was the dominant form of church government in Scotland, other denominations also played their part in the religious life of the city. In the social analysis of congregations, special attention is given to a comparison of contrasting pairs of churches. St. Stephen’s Church of Scotland in the northern New Town is compared with Free St. George’s at the West End. Two Congregational churches, Augustine and Brighton Street, while near neighbours, had a different ethos, with the latter being more aggressively evangelical. Finally, two Baptist churches are examined. Bristo Place, the original Scotch Baptist church, had a plurality of elders or lay pastors, while Charlotte Chapel was founded on ‘English’ lines with one full-time minister. The memberships of these six churches are analysed to ascertain whether particular denominations appealed to different social groups. An important part of my thesis is the position of the poor, who have often been regarded as lacking interest in religion. I will show that, contrary to this perception, many indeed were Christian but preferred to worship in their own environment, attending mission halls rather than the fashionable city churches. These missions were usually operated as evangelical outreach from large charges, with some later becoming independent from the mother church, and calling their own minister. However, they remained firmly based in their own localities. In this way class divisions, which were such a hallmark of Edinburgh, were preserved. Two missions operated on a non-denominational basis, drawing practical and financial support from many different churches. Carrubber’s Close Mission in the High Street worked in the poorest district, while the Edinburgh City Mission operated across the city. These missions were examples of Christianity in action as they sought to improve the social and moral conditions of the poor.

John Eliot (1604-1690) has been called ‘the apostle to the Indians’. This thesis looks at Eliot not from the perspective of modern Protestant ‘mission’ studies (the approach mainly adopted by previous research) but in the historical and theological context of 17th century puritanism. Drawing on recent research on migration to New England, the thesis argues that Eliot, like many other migrants, went to New England primarily in search of a safe haven to practise pure reformed Christianity, not to convert Indians. Eliot’s Indian ministry started from a fundamental concern for the conversion of the unconverted, which he derived from his experience of the puritan movement in England. Consequently, for Eliot, the notion of New England Indian ‘mission’ was essentially conversion-oriented, Wordcentred, and pastorally focussed, and (in common with the broader aims of New England churches) pursued a pure reformed Christianity. Eliot hoped to achieve this through the establishment of Praying Towns organised on a biblical model – where preaching, pastoral care and the practice of piety could lead to conversion – leading to the formation of Indian churches composed of ‘sincere converts’. The thesis starts with a critical historiographical reflection on how missiologists deploy the term ‘mission’, and proposes a perspectival shift for a better understanding of Eliot (Chapter 1). The groundwork for this new perspective is laid by looking at key themes in recent scholarship on puritanism, focusing on motives for the Great Migration, millenarian beliefs, and the desire for Indian conversion (Chapter 2). This chapter concludes that Indian conversion and millenarianism were not the main motives for Eliot’s migration to the New World, nor were his thoughts on the millennium an initial or lasting motive for Indian ministry. Next, the thesis investigates Eliot’s historical and theological context as a minister, through the ideas of puritan contemporaries in Old and New England, and presents a new perspective on Eliot by suggesting that conversion theology and pastoral theology were the most fundamental and lasting motives for his Indian ministry (Chapter 3). After the first three chapters, which relocate Eliot in his historical context, the last three chapters consider Eliot’s pastoral activities with the Indians. These have usually been understood as ‘mission’, without sufficient understanding of Eliot’s historical and theological context in the puritan movement and how he applied its ideas to Indian ministry. The thesis examines Eliot’s views on ‘Praying Towns’ as settlements for promoting civility and religion, and ‘Indian churches’ as congregations of true believers formed by covenant (Chapter 4). It investigates Eliot’s activities in the Indian communities, to apply puritan theology and ministerial practice to the Indians as his new parishioners (Chapter 5). Finally, the thesis offers a comparison of puritan and Indian conversion narratives, to try to recover Praying Indians’ own voices about conversion and faith (Chapter 6). This analysis finds both similarities and differences. The extent of the similarities does not necessarily mean (as some have alleged) that puritanism was unilaterally imposed on the Indians. The evidence equally well suggests a nuanced picture of Eliot’s engagement with the Indians from the perspective of 17th century puritanism and its conversion-oriented parish ministry.

Previous studies of the seven extant manuscripts of the seventeenth century Londoner, Nehemiah Wallington, have focused on the psychological effects of Puritan theology as the cause for his deep spiritual crisis and for his uncontrollable urge to document his inner mental and emotional experiences in a diary or journal. This thesis takes a somewhat different approach, starting from a prominent and recurrent theme in Wallington’s manuscripts: his thoughts of and experiences with death. From an early age, Wallington lost close family members to illness. Four of his five children died in early childhood. He lived through outbreaks of plague, and recorded into his manuscripts casualties wrought by civil war and inexplicable accidents that took place around him in the City of London. Evidence from what Wallington wrote about these events in his manuscripts indicates that he responded to his frequent encounters with human mortality through his understanding and practice of Puritan theology and piety. Responding to death through religious belief and observance was not an innovation: some have argued that the late medieval Catholic Church in England provided, through the Mass and the doctrine of purgatory, ways to respond to death that brought comfort and inspired fresh engagement with the world. Yet scholars have tended to see Wallington’s recourse to Puritan religion as something that made him want to throw his life away in suicidal despair, rather than as a means to ease his sorrows and encourage him to engage with society again (in other words, as a means to come to terms with death which in some ways paralleled the momentum of older Catholic devotion, but in a new and distinctively Reformed context). Studies of Wallington’s despair have focused only on a particular youthful episode. However, this thesis will look at the theme of death over Wallington’s lifelong pursuit of Puritan theology and piety. From an examination of his seven extant manuscripts, it will show not only how Wallington turned to Puritan theology and piety in the face of death, but also how his understanding and approach changed over time. His response developed from a compulsive emotional reaction to a clear strategy that involved reflecting on death in his own experiences of loss, as well as in the Bible and other printed materials, all of which he recorded in his manuscripts for others to read. Wallington’s decision to write down his reflections led him out of despair and the temptation to abandon his life, to express in his later manuscripts an active desire to engage with the world around him out of faith and trust in the vivifying power of Christ. The thesis starts with an introduction to Nehemiah Wallington and his context, and to the theme of death in his extant manuscripts (chapter one). Next, it explores how Wallington responded to his encounters with death by taking up writing, an activity that developed from an urgent need to keep a personal daybook of his sins to a more deliberate attempt to write for others (chapter two). After this, the thesis considers how Wallington’s early response to death inspired his attempt to construct a ‘self’ through his understanding of the Christian doctrine of mortification (chapter three). Then it provides a fresh account of Wallington’s suicide attempts: how his attempt to construct a ‘self’ through mortification initially led him to despair and to the temptation to negate his ‘self’ and his life in the world (chapter four). Following this, the thesis goes beyond the account of despair to argue that Wallington overcame his temptation to commit suicide and resolved to engage with the world around him, by meditating on and studying death (chapter five). Finally, the thesis shows how the evidence presented in earlier chapters gives a fresh perspective on Wallington, and suggests how this might contribute to a better understanding of continuity and change in the piety of seventeenth century Reformed Christianity (chapter six).

This thesis uses images of books in Italian art of the duecento and trecento as pictorial evidence for the appearance of books and to establish a chronology for changes in the detail and style of book-bindings during those two centuries. The conclusions from the pictorial evidence is that there were material differences in the appearance of books in the duecento and trecento and that gold tooling was used to decorate books from about 1320, a hundred years earlier than previously thought. The thesis also considers how, and to what extent, medieval viewers related to images of books and whether it is possible to identify individual styles in the way artists represented books. There are four case-studies that are used to investigate how images of books were used, and what religious, social, political and psychological purposes were served. Part of the methodology is to identify and study those points of change when books appear or when the way they are shown changes. This is in the belief that when circumstances alter, the artist responds consciously and creatively rather than by imitation. A number of works of art are studied in detail and the thesis proposes new interpretations for, inter alia, the Stefaneschi Altarpiece, Guido de Graziano'sDossal of St Francis, theAnnunciation scene in the Arena Chapel, the RucellaiMadonna, and the S Caterina Polyptych. The case-studies have demonstrated that the image of a book was one of the most powerful visual signs, certainly for the period and region to which this study has been devoted. It shows that in the decades around 1300 the book became an established attribute in altarpieces, the book displaced the rotullus as the symbol of authority, and the book became the dominant attribute of the VirginMary in scenes of the Annunciation, displacing earlier formats. The book was the symbol of learning and therefore a key attribute for the mendicant orders and especially the Dominican Order.

This study examines the nature and extent of various forms of anti-Catholicism which existed on Tyneside and in County Durham between 1845 and 1870. Previous studies that have touched upon anti-Catholicism in the North East of England have tended to argue that local cultural factors reduced the anti-Catholic feeling which was more evident in other areas of the country during this period. However, in applying and expanding upon previous theories of anti-Catholicism, the study will take a multi-faceted and broader perspective, rather than simply a manifestation of one specific type, to argue that local cultural conditions actively encouraged different forms of anti-Catholicism in different areas within Tyneside and in County Durham. It will demonstrate this through an examination of the major tenets of anti-Catholic ideology and their appeal among the wider population; the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various political campaigns which drew on ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’ anti-Catholic thought; the Protestant response to the resurgence of Catholicism at the local level and the role played by the local Catholic communities in increasing anti-Catholicism; and, finally, the varieties of religious violence, both English and Irish and intra-Irish, which were greatly influenced by local conditions and circumstances. This study has wider implications for our understanding of the pervasive and all-encompassing nature of nineteenth-century English anti-Catholicism generally. It also contributes towards the wider debate on North East regional identity by questioning the continued credibility of a paradigm which views the region as exceptionally tolerant and coherent.

The thesis comprises results of broad research into the Brethren Movement in the Faeroes from 1865 to 2010, emphasising the disciplines Church History, Economic, Social and Cultural History, Cultural Studies and Missiology. The role of Brethren in the Nation Building Process is analysed as well as their pioneering work in the language struggle. Drawing on recent theories the Faeroese Brethren Movement is set in national and international perspective. Interviwes with many Brethren confirm the validity of the theories and give insight into (1) the developments until the 1960s, and (2) the period after. New aspects are brought to light, analysed and seen as part of the general development in the islands, and how Brethren have influenced the national, economic and cultural progresses. Nowhere has the Brethren Movement had such support as in the Faeroes where around 15 per cent of the polulation are members; elsewhere it is between a half and one per cent at most. Reasons for this are analysed as are Brethren theology and practices, attitudes and activism which have influences the broader community. The conclusion points out that the Faeroese Brethren movement has had much greater impact on the progress and developments that so far acknowledged. Self-government, self-financing and self-propagation of each assembly have influenced attitudes outside the movement, and Brethren attitudes, pioneering spirit and new ways of thinking have inspired others. The Brethren Movement was the first to break away from colonial power (the Danish State Church) and establish a Faeroese church. Tensions and changes within the movement in the early 21st century are discussed and the future of Brethren in the Faeroes is evaluated.

This thesis will focus on the history of the Sienese ‘Poor Brigade’, and their founder, Giovanni Colombini. It will analyse events from the origins of the Brigade in 1355 down to 1470. During this period, Poor Brigade underwent a process of ‘institutionalization’ at the hands of the Church hierarchy. One of the main signs of this was a change of name: the Poor Brigade became the ‘Gesuati’. This transformation developed over the course of the century or so under discussion, and was concluded in the work of a Gesuato, Antonio Bettini. My research will present the passage from the Poor Brigade to the Gesuati as the paradigmatic example of the new ‘techniques of hegemony’ used by the institutional hierarchy of the medieval church to ‘domesticate’ the radical charisma of leaders such as Colombini. In my view the Church applied these ‘hegemonic strategies’ to the Gesuati, transforming their identity to control the content of the credo of Colombini, which was potentially dangerous for the existence of ecclesiastical power itself. My work builds on a small but careful body of scholarship on the Gesuati, which dcouments their formation and development, but, in my view, misunderstands its significance. To establish a new view of the nature of the transformation from Poor Brigade to Gesuati, I have proceeded as follows. Having surveyed the primary sources and secondary literature, the thesis analyzes the content of the mysticísm of Colombini. His teaching is then compared to the main theological and devotional movements in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, underlining the differences and the similarities. Finally, the thesis turns to analyze the hegemonic strategies through which the Church hierarchy transformed the ‘Poor Brigade’ into the Gesuati. Bringing into the discussion theories of modern and contemporary philosophy, I will show how the late medieval Church anticipated many applications of contemporary political power.

This study concerns two women who were religiously active either side of the Great Schism (1378–1417), a period of intensification of the excesses of personal pride and political ambition that divided the western Church and caused distress to devoted, thoughtful laity and clerics alike. Devout laity sought new expressions of piety in these stressful times and through examining the written legacies of two non-enclosed religious women, Caterina Benincasa and Margery Kempe, I explore not only the contemplative/devotional practices that characterise them, but also the clerics upon whom they relied for protection, support and guidance in male-dominated, strife-ridden medieval Europe. The two women, a northern Italian lifelong virgin for Christ and an East Anglian mother of fourteen children, prima facie, appear to have little in common except claimed illiteracy, a diversity of influences and acknowledging Bridget of Sweden as a fundamental inspirational source. However, both of their personal and literary management teams included members of several religious orders and their written productions were mostly dictated to and edited by men. They both negotiated their ecclesiastical acceptance from the position of institutionally inferior women through the exclusively female rôles of mother/sister/daughter in exerting influence over their father/brother/son managers through confronting them with their male self-images. Although the management practices applied in each case were very different in terms of structure and hierarchical level, the women‘s negotiations with the men followed similar lines, albeit through different written media. Caterina‘s negotiating techniques are found in the immediate medium of her letters and they involve persuasion and instruction as she tries to create situations that she can control in furtherance of her objectives. The study includes a selection of twelve letters that I have translated in full and analysed from the perspective of the register of the dialogues, the style and the imagery contained therein. Evidence of Margery Kempe‘s influence over her managers, including her husband, comes solely from the medium of the retrospective narrative of her Book in which she chooses the events that illustrate how she reacts to and manipulates people and situations to her advantage. The clerical managers were responsible for keeping their head-strong charges compliant with ever-changing contemporary views of orthodoxy within parameters negotiated between the women and the institutional church. Although there are clear, identifiable parallels between the managers in their styles and techniques, there are also differences rooted in the managers‘ perceptions of the two women‘s respective contributions to the furtherance of institutional aims. Caterina‘s situation was that of a woman whose institutional support was considered necessary at the highest levels of the Church‘s management structure. In Margery Kempe‘s case the management seemed to use her to develop aspects of their local inter-institutional competition for status and alms in Lynn. Despite this difference in influential level there is the strong probability of personal contact and shared theological academic backgrounds among the clerics that draws the teams together. This study concentrates primarily on comparing and contrasting the subtleties of the negotiations between each woman and her managers, negotiations which are often influenced by the women‘s introduction of the transcendental force of God‘s will as revealed only to them, and secondarily on the possible connections between the managers that link England to Italy, Lynn to Siena and Margery to Caterina. The management techniques revealed are independent of any connections between the managers and there is little by way of common techniques apart from the complexities of reciprocal management and the women‘s exploitation of male conceptions of what is appropriate to themselves (the managers) and to women in the Church.

Over the second half of the 20th Century and the beginning part of the 21st Century, major change has occurred in the worship practice of many churches. Within this time frame enormous change has occurred in the social, economic, political, technological, scientific and religious framework of British society. Worship practice has been influenced by these changes. This doctoral dissertation sets out to explore how British Methodist worship has changed over the same time period. The focus of this dissertation is on change in the practice of non-Eucharistic worship in British Methodism. This is the form of worship practiced most frequently in the British Methodist Church. It examines the form, content, style and ordering of worship and explores how the very ethos of worship has altered. In this time period there has been expressed discontent about worship. This thesis examines what the Liturgical Movement has promoted as a way toward renewal of worship, and explores how British Methodism might appropriate from the Liturgical Movement ideas and lessons that would aid the renewal of worship in the Methodist Church.

This thesis examines the history of Anglican and the Methodist churches’ collaboration in Western Nigeria during the era of the missionaries and after. The intention is to establish the approach that the early foreign missionaries bequeathed to the mission-oriented churches has been a particular problem, which has inhibited the emergence of a truly African or Nigerian form of unity particularly between the Anglican and the Methodist churches. A critical evaluation of the churches’ collaboration in Nigeria would suggest that what obtains is institutional and doctrinal unity introduced by the missionaries. While this study appreciates and commends the efforts of the early missionaries for laying these collaborative and ecumenical foundations, the study holds that it does not go far enough especially in attaining its potential to positively affect the sociocultural, religious and political challenges facing contemporary Nigeria society. Such an effective collaborative spirit is achievable only when it is contextualized, employing local and indigenous approaches including indigenous theological education. This thesis does not condemn western contributions because there are aspects of western culture that are still relevant in the context of global collaboration. However, it stresses the need for the understanding of ecumenical collaboration from different cultures particularly in Yoruba speaking region of Nigeria, so that, instead of looking up too much to the West for leadership in ecumenism, it should grow in the Nigerian climate and culture

This thesis examines Oneness Pentecostalism from 1914 to 1931 via its initial interracial vision, the ministry of Garfield Thomas Haywood, and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. It attempts to rectify a one dimensional historical perspective which has ignored the significance of race in the restorative framework of the early movement, tracing its interracial fervor to the Azusa revival and its resistance to the Parham influenced U.S.south. Fresh historical detail informs assessment of the 1906 Azusa mission founding of the interracial PAW and Oneness Pentecostalism’s most obscure, yet vital early leaders, J. J. Frazee and E. W. Doak. All key leaders are studied from the perspective of the movement’s major centers, especially the centrality and history of Haywood and Indianapolis as its foremost epicenter. Its interracial authenticity is examined in relationship to its pre-Oneness PAW context, the battle for the Assemblies of God, and the transition of the PAW from Trinitarian to Oneness Pentecostalism. Investigation of the 1924 PAW racial schism, impact, and withdrawing White segment reveals diffusion and the proliferation of separatism and independency. The final analysis summarizes the movement’s region by region development and global spread by 1930 and examines the successes of early Oneness Pentecostal missionaries.

This study indicates that several common assumptions about Anglican pew-renting are unrealistic. Although many critics writing in the nineteenth century, and some historians since, believe that rented sittings in Anglican churches were filled by the very rich and the upper-middle class, the evidence strongly indicates that the primary renters were from the middle-middle and lower-middle classes, particularly small business owners. Also contrary to popular belief, pew-letting continued in many churches well into the twentieth century, in some instances into the 1950s and 1960s, and one Anglican church in the British Isles has continued to rent sittings into the twenty-first century. This is qualified, though, by the finding that those churches that rented sittings persisted in the practice for longer than was expected, but the number of new churches which instituted seat-letting systems dwindled, particularly in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Pew-renting is also seen to have been most often practiced in large urban churches of low-church orientation. The findings further suggest that most churches abolished pew-rents in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, not for philosophical or charitable reasons, but because profits diminished to the point at which the cost and trouble of administering a system of pew-rents could not economically justify the revenue produced. Finally, this study has uncovered some evidence both of private pew-renting in addition to proprietary chapels, and of informal pew-renting in the form of tips paid to pew-openers and other officials for preferred seating for a single church service. Examples of dishonest behaviour by church officials are also given.

This thesis is the first scholarly attempt to examine the veneration that Mary’s parents – and her mother Anna in particular – enjoyed in Byzantium. The four pillars upon which this examination will be based are topography, texts, relics and iconography. The topography of Constantinople is examined in relation to that of Jerusalem in order to bring to the surface new ideas on the development of Constantinopolitan topography. I also look at the motives behind the construction of the first church dedicated to St Anna in Constantinople and its relation to the topography of the Holy Land. In terms of textual production, I show that until the eighth century Mary’s parents and their story recounted in the second-century apocryphal Protevangelion of James, were intentionally ‘ignored’ because of the non-canonical nature of the text. But from the eighth century onwards the situation dramatically changes with the emergence of Byzantine homilies and Ι will explore the reasons that triggered this change as well as the way Mary’s parents are presented in this genre. Finally, I discuss the problematic around Anna’s relics, her association with iconophilia, demonstration of Orthodoxy, healing and protection of childbirth. Last but not least, the examination of iconographical evidence will uncover the visual impact of Anna’s cult and will complete the study of her veneration in Byzantium.

This thesis investigates cultural expressions of episcopal power in Anglo-Norman England. Bishops were powerful men who operated within a complex power structure. It addresses three key cultural themes: language, the body and space. Using a variety of source material this study offers a wide-ranging vision of episcopal power. It draws on a number of theoretical positions and confronts some of the most damaging historiographical narratives which have overshadowed the bishop. The central aim of this thesis is to investigate the performance of power. By studying how bishops used documents and rhetoric it is possible to understand episcopal power as a pragmatic force. In particular the symbols or representations of power are in fact acts of power which need to be interpreted within the broader historical context of post-Conquest England. Overall this thesis seeks to reposition bishops back in their cathedrals and in this way provide a comparative study of episcopal power.

Modern scholarship has generated several works on ancient Greco-Roman, Jewish or biblical oneirology, whereas it has never resulted in a book or monograph devoted solely to the study of patristic oneirology. Although many articles discuss the dreams in patristic texts, most of their authors do not analyse these dreams correctly in their doctrinal context, a context from which virtually all patristic dream narratives or discourses emerged. This thesis endeavours to remedy the deficiency in the construction of patristic views of dreams by a corresponding analytic approach. Numerous early Christian writers attempted to formulate a Christian dream theory, conceptualise dream phenomena, or interpret their own dreams or the dreams of prominent figures. This thesis argues that from their perspective, the nature of human-inspired dreams can be conceived of as creations of the soul, as indicators of the dreamer’s state and as moral reflection (Ch.1 to 3), that of demon-inspired dreams as demonic assault, temptation and deception (Ch.4) and finally that of divinely-inspired dreams as a site of epiphany, as divine messages and as the dynamic of faith reinforcement (Ch.5 to 7). In addition to investigating their thoughts on dreams, additional discussions of Greco-Roman, Jewish and biblical dream traditions will be provided as helpful references for readers to understand the background in which patristic oneirology was shaped and cultivated (Appendixes). Moreover, unlike pagan authors, these Christian writers did not elucidate dreams for oneirological, physiological or psychological purposes. Rather, their real agenda was to promulgate Christian doctrines, including the doctrines of man, asceticism, sin, demonology, God, Christology, revelation and eschatology. When they encountered dreams, they not only interpreted but doctrinalised them, just as they did to many other aspects of human life. Methodologically, they dogmatically expounded dreams so as to facilitate their dissemination of the doctrines. The making of patristic oneirology was essentially the propagation of dogmatics. Hermeneutically, they integrated doctrinal tenets into their explication of dreams. The doctrines defined the essence of dreams and even orientated their mission outside the dream world. Accordingly, their oneirological and doctrinal conceptions were intertwined and serve each other. This doctrinalised oneirology marked the birth of a new ideology of dreams in late antiquity. Hence, in each chapter the methodological and hermeneutical relationships between dreams and the related doctrine in patristic texts will be demonstrated. Due to these relationships, this thesis contends that the task of penetrating patristic views of dreams cannot be accomplished without analysing them in their doctrinal context; meanwhile, the doctrines cannot be fully represented without undertaking that task.

This thesis aims to study Western missionaries’ theological debate over the choice of the name of God, known as the Term Question, in the Korean Bible, a controversy which implied a certain theological position in terms of the degree of continuity or discontinuity between existing Korean theistic belief and faith in the God of Bible. This thesis seeks three goals. First, it attempts to analyse the Chinese roots of the Term Question in Korea. In China, the Term Question first arose among Roman Catholic missions from 1637 to 1742 between an indigenous Confucian term, Shangti 上帝 (Sovereign on High), favoured by the Jesuits, notably Matteo Ricci, and a neologism, T’ienzhu 天主 (the Lord of Heaven), used by the Dominicans and the Franciscans. A second phase of the Chinese Term Question involved nineteenth-century Protestant missions, and confronted missions with a choice between Shangti, most notably advocated by James Legge of the London Missionary Society, and Shen 神 (a generic term for god), supported by a majority of American missionaries. These three Chinese theistic terms were imported into the Korea mission field. John Ross of the United Presbyterian Church in Manchuria, in his first Korean New Testament (1877-1887), translated the name of God as Hananim, the Supreme Lord of Korean indigenous religion, on the basis of the Shangti edition of the Delegates’ Version. The first Korean Roman Catholics and later the Anglican missions in Korea adopted Ch’onzhu (Chinese T’ienzhu), following Catholic practice in China. A Korean diplomat in Japan, Su-Jung Lee, adopted Shin (Chinese Shen) from the Shen edition of the Chinese Bible, in his Korean Bible translations (1883-1885). The need to choose between the these three Korean theistic terms, derived theologically from the three corresponding Chinese theistic terms, consequently triggered the Term Question in Korea from 1882 to 1911. Second, the thesis argues that there was a significant theological continuity between the Chinese and Korean Term Questions. The Term Question in both China and Korea proceeded on a similar pattern; it was a terminological controversy between an indigenous theistic term (Shangti and Hananim) on the one hand and a neologism (T’ienzhu and Korean Ch’onzhu) or a generic term (Shen and Korean Shin) on the other hand. Central to both Term Questions was the theological issue of whether a primitive monotheism, congruent with Christian belief, had existed among the Chinese and Koreans. It will suggest that whilst those who adhered to a degeneration theory of the history of religions used either Shangti or Hananim as the name of the God of the Bible, those who rejected the existence of primitive monotheism preferred to use the neologism or the generic term. Third, this thesis suggests that there was, nevertheless, a significant divergence between the Term Question in China and that in Korea. Whereas the Term Question in China became polarised for over three centuries between two equal and opposite parties – between the Jesuits (Shangti) and the Dominicans-Franciscans (T’ienzhu), and later between the Shangti party and the Shen party in Protestant missions, that in iv Korea was a short-term argument for three decades between a vast majority (of the Hananim party) and a small minority (the opponents of Hananim). It is argued that the disproportion in Korea in favour of Hananim was due to the much closer analogy between Hananim and the Christian trinity, as seen in the Dan-Gun myth, than was the case with Shangti in Chinese religion. For this reason, the thesis concludes by suggesting that the adoption of the indigenous monotheistic term, Hananim, in a Christian form contributed to the higher rate of growth of the Korean church compared to that of the church in China.

This thesis is an examination of the most important Scottish saints’ cults and pilgrimage centres in the period c.1349-1560. Specifically, this project locates the role of this group within the wider devotional practices of the late medieval kingdom. Through analysis of liturgical calendars, ecclesiastical dedications, contemporary literature and naming and pilgrimage patterns, it identifies and explains the distinctive features of the veneration of national saints in late medieval Scotland in the two centuries from the first appearance of the Black Death in 1349 to the Reformation in 1560. The key theme of this thesis is the consideration of the manner in which external factors, such as general Western European social and religious developments, and distinctly local phenomena such as the intermittent warfare with England and the varied agendas of interest groups like shrine custodians, the national church and the crown, impacted upon the saintly landscape of the late medieval kingdom and the popular piety of its people. The medieval cult of the saints is a subject of considerable value for historians because it was a movement in a constant state of flux. It adapted to the socio-religious context of the societies in which it operated. Although never neglected as an area of study, the cult of the saints in Scotland has received further attention in recent years through the influence of the Survey of Dedications to Saints in Medieval Scotland project carried out at the University of Edinburgh from 2004-7. However, studies on the role and function of national and local saints, those believed by contemporaries to have had a Scottish provenance or a hagiographical connection to the medieval kingdom, have tended to focus on two specific periods. These were the so called ‘age of the saints’, the period between the fourth and eighth centuries in which the majority of these men and women were thought to have been active, or the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from when the main Latin hagiographical sources originate. The role and function of this group in the later middle ages has been either neglected or subject to the pervasive influence of a 1968 article by David McRoberts which argued that church- and crown- sponsored patriotism was the main factor in shaping popular piety in this period. This thesis will question this premise and provide the first indepth study of the cults of St Andrew, Columba of Iona/Dunkeld, Kentigern of Glasgow and Ninian of Whithorn in a late medieval Scottish context, as well as the lesser known northern saint, Duthac of Tain.

This thesis investigates the legends of saintly widows within Medieval Castilian prose, specifically the lives of Saints Paula and Cecilia, in hagiographical works known as Compilation A and Compilation B. These Castilian legends have been reworked from their appearance in the Latin Legenda aurea of c. 1264, composed by Jacobus de Voragine. Chapter One works as an introduction to the thesis. It observes the history of the hierarchy of married, widowed, and virginal women, debating which category of female, if any, was able to attain the highest level of eventual celestial purity. Chapter Two concentrates more specifically on manuscript context. It notes the composition of the original Latin Legenda aurea, in terms of male and female composition as well as looking at the constitution of different categories of saints. Following this the composition of the Castilian Compilations is discussed, including the purposes for writing these filiations and destined audience type. Chapter Three focuses on the reworking of the legend of Saint Paula from the Latin to Compilation A, commenting principally upon textual omissions, alterations, and other significant modifications. Chapter Four undertakes an in-depth thematic analysis of the legend for the same saint. Chapter Five works in much the same way as Chapter Three, here focusing on Saint Cecilia, and Chapter Six mirrors Chapter Four, again looking at the symbolic significance of Saint Cecilia in Medieval Castilian hagiography. Chapter Seven operates as a concluding section to the work, bringing together the concepts at the heart of the saintly widow, and asking if a common ethos can be established between such apparently disparate legends. In an appendix, complete editions of each text are presented for the first time, along with xeroxes of the manuscripts and their Latin sources.

The stated purpose of the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was the establishment of charity schools which were complementary to statutory parochial schools in the Highland parishes of Scotland. The parochial schools were demonstrably unsuited for these parishes due to terrain, weather, infrastructure, the nature of settlement, and their vulnerability to the Catholic mission. Historians and commentators have tended to see the society through a cultural and linguistic lens, imputing to it the weak condition in which Gaelic finds itself today. A ban on teaching Gaelic literacy, which was not lifted until the 1760s, has been considered part of an overall strategy to eliminate Gaelic in the hopes of greater civilization in the Highlands. This perspective overlooks a broader significance of the society, which, as a corporation, extended charity beyond the landed classes and nobility, to the rising professions and also common labourers and tenants, through its use of the parishes to collect donations. It was also a sustained effort at establishing a joint-stock company in the wake of the Bank of Scotland and the Company of Scotland, and instituted transparent business practices to foster a reputation for financial probity. The moral aspect of its mission required good and pious behaviour from its teachers, for them to serve as an example for the schools’ communities and to persuade, rather than coerce, children to attend. The society was also very much of its time, with a role in a completion of the Reformation which was a common theme in contemporary religious and social circles. This completion was structural, with the Church of Scotland trying to secure its presbyterian establishment throughout the country, but also moral, with the Societies for Reformation of Manners in England and Scotland, and the Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge in England, building the legacy of the Reformation and the providential revolution through an encouragement of moral behaviour. These were private groups, however, and while the SPCK developed a channel for charitable activity for the rising professional and middle classes, the SSPCK worked to produce a national corporate effort to support reformation and education in the Highlands.

This work studies religious change through the archaeology of death and burial. In the period after the fall of Rome and before the Vikings, Scotland became a Christian society, but there are few historical documents to help understand how this happened. The process of conversion to Christianity in Scotland has long been a contentious issue, but until recent years, there was simply not enough reliable archaeological evidence to test the accepted narrative of conversion by missionaries from Ireland and Gaul. A number of key excavations over the last two decades have created the opportunity to reassess the evidence and test existing models. The earliest inhumation cemeteries in Scotland emerge in the period c. AD 400-650, and a large number of radiocarbon dates from these sites now provide a sturdy chronological framework for studying the effects of the conversion to Christianity. This is the first full-length study of the early medieval burial evidence from Scotland, and the first comprehensive revision of the archaeological evidence for early Christianity since the work of Charles Thomas in 1971. A review of the latest historical research suggests that Christianity arrived in Scotland from at least the 5th century AD, which coincides with the emergence of inhumation cemeteries. In order to contextualise this material, a database of all burial evidence from Scotland in the first millennium AD was constructed to trace changes in ritual practice over the long term. A multiscalar analysis of this data – from individual graves, to ‘family plots’, to entire cemeteries – revealed new insights into funerary rituals and significant corrections of previous studies. Covering all of Scotland but keeping this in its wider northwestern European context, the theoretical framework adopted here follows the latest research on Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland, and analyses the material for what it can tell us about people’s memories, hopes and fears rather than the usual political and economic narratives. The Scottish burial evidence takes on a wide variety of forms, from long cists and log coffins to square barrows and cairns, generally placed away from settlement. New radiocarbon dates show conclusively that these burial rites predate Christianity in Scotland, and this study includes a crucial new review of pre-Christian funerary practices. Sequences of radiocarbon-dated burials from early Christian sites of the 5-7th centuries provide new evidence for what can and cannot be construed as a ‘Christian’ burial. Throughout the radical changes taking place in this period, including the origins of the Picts, Scots and Anglo-Saxons, funerary rituals helped create new social relationships, and mediated the tensions these could create, during times of upheaval. Rather than reflecting the arrival of Christianity, this complex network of social practices reveals the way Christianity was accommodated within Iron Age societies, and the way it was continually reinvented throughout the early medieval period into the Viking Age. In adapting the new religion to existing lifeways, Christianity itself was ‘converted’, and this is the key to understanding changes in the archaeological record in Scotland and beyond. The Scottish evidence should now be seen as a crucial dataset for the study of the wider transformations of the post-Roman world. Recommendations for further research were proposed, including the need to expand research beyond the modern Scottish border. To promote continuing research, the burial database will be made available online.

Bha Naomh Moire Òigh fìor chudromach ann an cràbhachd Eòrpach nam meadhan-aoisean anmoch. Tha e na amas aig an tràchdas seo faighinn a-mach a bheil an aon rud fìor airson Gàidhealtachd na h-Alba. Thathar a’ caoidh nach eil tùsan gu leòr ann a tha ceadachadh dhuinn mòran ionnsachadh mu chràbhachd nan Gàidheal aig an àm. Ach thèid cur air adhart an seo nach eil sin buileach ceart. Chithear gum faod sgrùdadh air ainmean, clachan-snaighte, clàraidhean eachdraidheil is eile a bhith torrach ma bhios sinn airson sealladh fhaighinn air cràbhachd do Mhoire. Ach thèid sealltainn cuideachd gur e sgrùdadh air litreachas an dòigh as fheàrr tuilleadh ionnsachadh mu chràbhachd do Mhoire. Chithear gum faod sgrùdadh mar sin ionnsachadh dhuinn mu chleachdaidhean cràbhaidh agus an dòigh a bhathar a’ tuigsinn àite na h-Òighe anns an diadhachd. ’S e a’ bhàrdachd chlasaigeach chràbhaidh a gheibhear anns an làmh-sgrìobhainn Leabhar Deadhan Lios Mòir (1512-1542) prìomh thùs an tràchdais seo. Thèid coimhead air nòsan na bàrdachd seo a bha ga dèanamh ann an Èirinn agus Alba agus thèid ceistean a thogail mu amasan, diadhachd agus tùsan nan dàn agus gu dè an ìre a tha iad a’ toirt dhuinn fianais airson creideamh a bha àraid do na Gàidheil. Gheibhear clàr agus sgrùdadh airson na bàrdachd chràbhaidh air fad a gheibhear ann an Leabhar an Deadhain. Tha còig dàin air Moire ann an Leabhar an Deadhain agus ’s iad sin: ‘Éistidh riomsa, a Mhuire mhór’, ‘Fuigheall beannacht brú Mhuire’, ‘Binn labhras leabhar Muire’, ‘Iomdha sgéal maith ar Mhuire’, agus ‘Ná léig mo mhealladh, a Mhuire’. Seallaidh sgrùdadh mionaideach air na còig dàin sin gun robh iomadh feart aig Moire do na Gàidheil, mar a bha air feadh na h-Eòrpa.

This thesis examines the evidence for the involvement in warfare of clerks and religious in England between the beginning of the tenth century and the end of the twelfth. It focuses on bishops and abbots, whose military activities were recorded more frequently than lesser clergy, though these too are considered where appropriate. From the era of Christian conversion until long after the close of the middle ages, clergy were involved in the prosecution of warfare. In this period, they built fortresses and organised communities of warriors in time of peace and war. Some were slain in battle, while others were given promotion or lands for their martial exploits. A series of canonical pronouncements aimed to forbid or restrict the involvement of Christian clergy in organised bloodshed, and some writers branded militant clergy as corrupted by the lure of earthly power or even as having surrendered their sacerdotal status. This study therefore approaches the military practices of clergy alongside the legal and narrative treatments, and treats the latter as reactions to, not the background of, the former. This requires consideration of a wide range of narrative, diplomatic and legal source material. A broad approach shows that clerics’ military activities cannot be separated from their spiritual powers, that canonical treatment was more fragmented and less influential than has been assumed, and that the condemnations of some authors existed alongside others’ praise for clerics’ valour, loyalty, or commitment to defending their flocks. In consequence, the extended study of clerical participation in warfare is shown to have significant consequences for our conception of the bounds of military history, the construction of the licit and the illicit, and the nature of clerical identity itself.

This thesis addresses the gap in the scholarly record pertaining to the explicit relationship between gospel genre and implied audience. This thesis challenges the consensus that the canonical gospels were written to/for individual communities/churches and that these documents (gospels) address the specific historical/social circumstances of each community. It is argued in the thesis that the Evangelists chose the genre of biography because it was the genre that was best suited to present the words and deeds of Jesus to the largest possible audience. The central thesis is supported by four lines of evidence: two external and two internal (Chapters 3-6). Furthermore, the thesis is bolstered by a new typology for Greco-Roman biography that arranges the biographical examples within a relational matrix. Chapter 2 is integral to the main thesis of this dissertation in that it proposes nuanced language capable of being applied to specific kinds of biographies with the emphasis on the relationship to implied audience. Chapter 2 sets the boundaries of the discussion of genre as a vital factor in potentially determining audience as well as raising the important consideration that genres are representative of authorial choice and intent. Chapters 3 and 4 take up the discussion of the two lines of external evidence pertinent to placing the Gospels within the relational typology proposed in chapter 2. Chapter 3 supports the main argument of the thesis in that it demonstrates that the earliest Christian interpreters of the Gospels did not understand them to be sectarian documents written specifically to and/or for specific sectarian Christian communities. The second line of external evidence, taken up in chapter 4, deals with the wider context of Jesus literature in the second/third century. We argue that these texts, if any of them are indeed biographies, were part of the wider Christian practice of writing and disseminating literary presentations of Jesus and Jesus traditions. Chapters 5 and 6 address the lines of internal evidence and chapter 5 deals specifically with the difficulty in reconstructing the various gospel communities that might lie behind the gospel texts. It is argued that the genre of biography does not allow us to reconstruct these communities with any detail. Finally, chapter 6 is concerned with the ‘all nations’ motif present in all four of the canonical gospels. The ‘all nations’ and ‘sending’ motifs in the Gospels suggest an evangelistic tone for the Gospels and further suggest an ideal secondary audience beyond those who could be identified as Christian.

The aim of this study is twofold: to identify the theological purpose underlying the depiction of angels at certain key points in the history of their use, and to explore how far that deeper theological rationale can be re-appropriated for our own day. This study first traces the progression of the angelic motif in the Hebrew Scriptures. By examining numerous pericopes in the Pentateuch, major prophets and Daniel, I demonstrate that the metamorphosis of higher-order beings like the angel of the Lord, cherubim and seraphim, is directly related to the writers' desire to enhance God's transcendence. Next, I evaluate pseudo-Denys' hierarchical angelology, which prominent theologians like Luther and Calvin condemned as little more than a Neoplatonic scheme for accessing God through angels. I propose that not only has pseudo-Denys' Neoplatonism been overstated, but that his angelology is particularly noteworthy for the way it accentuates Christ's eucharistic immanence to the Church. Then I maintain that because assessments of Aquinas' angelology are often based upon the Summa Theologiae, his views are wrongly portrayed as overtly philosophical, rather than biblical and exegetical. In his lesser-known biblical commentaries, however, Aquinas pushes the semantic range of the word ‘angel' to include aspects of the physical world, which unveils an imaginative, Christocentric, and scriptural dimension of his angelology that is rarely acknowledged. The conclusion considers how contemporary figures and movements relate to these three angelologies. Barth emphasises the transcendent God but unlike Hebrew Scripture, weakens connections between God and angels. New Ageism affirms the immanent angel but unlike pseudo-Denys, does so at the expense of Christology and ecclesiology. Contemporary ecological discourse generally lacks Aquinas' appreciation for an imaginative, supernatural approach to the world. Finally, I ground the angels' relationship to transcendence, immanence and imagination in an experiential, eucharistic context.

A cathedral of the Church of England is the seat of the bishop and a centre of worship and mission. The history of this institution is followed from the English Reformation, which it survived, through to the Commonwealth, which it did not. Restored on the return of the monarchy, it then survived with little further trouble until the nineteenth century, when a lot of its income was diverted to the provision of churches and ministers for the populous urban and industrialised areas, which the Church could not fund in any other way. It was the subject of investigation by two Royal Commissions in the nineteenth century and three church-inspired commissions in the twentieth. These commissions stressed the links that should exist between cathedral, bishop and diocese, which the nineteenth century diocesan revival also encouraged, and suggested changes in instruments of governance to achieve this. Some proposals came to nothing, but others were brought into law. Unlike the Roman Catholic cathedral, the Anglican one never lost its autonomy. The religious situation in Britain today is considered in the light of some contemporary sociology and psychology, and it is recognised that the continued decline in the fortunes of the Church is tied up with the massive subjective turn which characterises contemporary culture. The cathedral has not shared the mistrust which faces the Church, and its various roles are discussed in the light of its continued hold on public affection. The conclusions reached are that, although the cathedral now has strong links with bishop and diocese, it should retain its independence within relationships of interdependence with them, to enable it to harness the popularity which it enjoys to remain a centre of worship, but primarily to concentrate on being a centre of mission. Appropriate ways of achieving that are discussed.

This thesis advances a claim for the centrality of a politics of peace in early Christianity, with particular focus given to the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Matthew. In brief, I argue that Paul’s task of announcing the gospel to the nations involved calling and equipping assemblies of people whose common life was ordered by a politics (by which I mean, chiefly, a mode of corporate conduct) characterised by peaceableness, and this theological politics was a deliberate participation in the political order announced and inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth. To this end, there are three main components of the thesis. Chapter Two is focused on the Gospel of Matthew, particularly the way in which violence (and peace) are constructed by the evangelist. Chapter Three bridges the first and third components of the thesis, attending to the important question of the continuity between Jesus and Paul on the issue of non-violence. The third component involves two chapters. Chapter Four attempts to identify the trajectory of violence and peace in Paul’s biography and in the “biography” of his Galatian converts (as he portrays it), and the fifth chapter traces the presence of this non-violent gospel in (arguably) Paul’s earliest letter. The intended effect is to show that a politics of non-violence was an early, central, non-negotiable component of the gospel, that its presence can be detected in a variety of geographical expressions of early Christianity, that this (normally) “ethical” dimension of the gospel has a political aspect as well, and that this political dimension of the gospel stands in stark contrast to the politics of both the contemporary imperial power and those who would seek to replace it through violence.

Religious leaders were key figures within African American society in the late antebellum South. They undertook a vital religious function within both the plantation slave community and the institutionalised biracial and independent black church and many became a focal point for African American Christianity amongst slaves and free blacks. These religious leaders also took on a number of secular responsibilities, becoming counsellors, mediators, and advisors, individuals that blacks would frequently seek out for their opinion, advice and solace. African American religious leaders held a position considered to be vital and prestigious. But such a position was also perilous. Black religious leaders had to reconcile the conflicting demands of two groups whose needs were almost diametrically opposed. Slaves and free blacks wanted to hear a message of hope, but the Southern elite wanted to hear a message of obedience to ensure that their authority remained unchallenged. Appeasing both groups was an almost impossible task. Failing to meet their demands, however, could be disastrous for black religious leaders. Slaves and free blacks who heard a message of obedience to the Southern white elite rejected the authority of the black preacher, who was then often unable to continue his ministrations. Conversely, those who were considered to be teaching a message that was undermining the planter's authority faced reprisals from white society. These reprisals could be violent. In order to survive, black religious leaders had to chart a difficult course between the two groups, giving a sense of hope to the enslaved but in a manner that did not appear to undermine white authority. Within historical scholarship, it has been argued that African American religious leaders shared a common role. By the late antebellum period, however, a divide had emerged amongst black religious leaders. Although they continued to share many of the same goals, responsibilities, and challenges, the form of Christianity practiced by black preachers on the plantation was not the same as that practiced by licensed black ministers in the biracial and independent black church. Christianity within the plantation slave community continued to include African traditions and rituals that had survived the transatlantic crossing. Christianity within the biracial and independent black church, however, had begun to reject these African traditions as backward and outdated, and had moved instead towards a form of religion that, whilst still emotional and uplifting, was also more formal and hierarchical, resembling the Christianity of white Southern evangelicals.Black preachers and licensed black ministers were preaching Christianity in the face of adversity and had the potential to become political leaders within the African American community. The realisation of this potential was hindered, not only by the constant supervision of these religious leaders by the white elite but also through the refusal of black preachers and ministers to use Christianity to justify acts of resistance. This research adds new insight to the role of African American religious leaders through a detailed understanding of their different approaches in delivering the Christian message.

This thesis examines the interaction between religion and empire in Manchester between 1876 and 1899 with particular focus on the Catholic Church. The existing story of imperialism and religion in Manchester argues that by 1900 there existed a common imperial culture across all Churches. Whilst this is convincing, this thesis examines the Catholic story, which has not been substantially investigated before, and uncovers more varied reasons for imperial engagement, and differences in emphasis, than previously acknowledged.The struggle for elementary education has been seen as the dominant factor which led to a new confidence and political maturity amongst Catholics by the year 1900. This thesis shows how other decisions taken on a local level by Catholic hierarchies and laymen were also important. The thesis analyses the key role played by Bishop Vaughan of Salford and other clergy in the formation of the Manchester Geographical Society (MGS). The nature of the MGS is placed within the wider literature on geographical societies. The influence of religious figures on geographical societies and cultures of exploration in England, has been previously neglected. Vaughan's aims for involvement in the MGS were diverse, including the greater involvement of Catholics in civil society, a redefinition of the Catholic image, and a more closely defined role for Catholics in the British empire. The MGS emerges as a hybrid institution, of competing aims and values, rather than a commercial pressure group. The foundation by Bishop Vaughan of St. Bede's College in Manchester, for the Catholic middle class of the city, is then described. The technical and geographical education developed at the school, by Vaughan and Prefect of Studies Louis Charles Casartelli, was formulated to strengthen the commercial nature of the growing Catholic middle class, and in the longer term to aid both the assimilation of local Catholics into society, and to change the image of the faith to one which was engaged with aspects of the modern world and the wider empire. The museum at the school is also shown to have played a key role in redefining geography as a subject. Bishop Vaughan and Louis Charles Casartelli actively engaged with modern developments in Manchester, and aspects of contemporary society such as imperialism, exploration and commerce.No previous study has analysed St. Bede's College to any extent. This thesis uses the MGS Archive located at Greater Manchester County Record Office, many documents from which have never been analysed. Material is also used from the Church Lads' Brigade archive near Rotherham, and from St. Bede's College.

The present thesis is an annotated edition of the 'Refutation of the errors of the Latins' by the Byzantine scholar, canonist and theologian Matthaios Blastares (c.1350). The thesis comprises an Introduction and an edition of the text. The Introduction is divided into two Parts (I-II). Part I gives biographical information on the author and his work in the wider context of the dialogue between the Byzantine and Latin theologians in this period. This is followed by an examination of the evidence concerning the circumstances of the composition of the treatise, an analysis of its structure and content together with a commentary on the arguments put forward by Blastares to refute the most important points of divergence between the two sides, concerning doctrinal and ecclesiastical issues as well as liturgical practices, and finally an evaluation of the treatise. Part II is devoted to the manuscript tradition. The treatise is transmitted in twenty-four manuscripts (MSS) dated between the fourteenth and seventeenth century. Our edition is based on eleven of the earlier MSS containing the entire treatise. These codices, together with the partial editions of chapter [38.66-60] by Dositheos Patriarch of Jerusalem, Τόμoç Καταλλαγñç (Jassi, 1694), pp. 441-456, and chapter [49] by Leo Allatius, In Roberti Creyghtoni apparatum, versionem & notas ad historiam concilii Florentini scriptam a Silvestro Syropulo de unione inter Graecos & Latinos, exercitationes, pars prima (Rome, 1665), pp. 331-332, are described and studied from the codicological and palaeographical point of view, before their relation is established and a reconstruction of the stemma codicum is proposed. The edition of the text of the complete treatise is accompanied by an apparatus fontium et locorum parallelorum, and an apparatus criticus, preceded by a brief note on the conventions adopted in the present edition and a list of abbreviations and signs used in the apparatus criticus. The thesis closes with full bibliography, an Appendix and facsimiles of selected folios of the MSS used in our edition.

This thesis examines the representations of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux produced by the Carmel of Lisieux in the years between the saint’s death in 1897, and that of her sister Céline Martin (Soeur Geneviève de la Sainte-Face) in 1959. It examines the construction of an iconographical foundation for the saint’s cult, the commercial distribution of this iconography, the debate about its authenticity that emerged in the 1920s, and the efforts by the originators of the image to maintain legal control of it. It explores the process of cultural legitimation of these images by the Carmel of Lisieux and, through these, of the cult itself, through a variety of methods, from the articulation of ideas of spiritual and artistic authority, to presence in the mass market, to apologetic, and the use of legislation. The thesis begins by examining the work of the Carmel of Lisieux to visually reshape Thérèse Martin and recast her as a saint through their posthumous representations of her, giving her a new face to fit the existing devotional landscape. Particular emphasis is placed on Céline Martin, as the director of the visual elements of the cult and author of the canonical images of Saint Thérèse, and her personal conceptions of the authentic holy image. The dissemination of the Carmel’s representations of the saint through a programme of popular publications and consumer products is then examined, exploring how the saint was promoted to the Catholic faithful in the religious marketplace, and how the market was used to establish Céline’s images in the economy of popular devotion, giving Thérèse a foothold as a saint who could be believed in. The thesis then turns to the reaction to the Carmel’s visual recasting of Saint Thérèse, examining a group of popular biographies of the saint that appeared in the early twentieth century. Here a body of literature is identified where anxieties over the authentic representation of holy figures are played out, and the emergence of a new paradigm for the representation of the saint is traced. The Carmel is shown to have responded to this with a series of apologetics, where they again articulated the alleged authenticity of their images. Finally, the series of legal cases launched by the convent against producers of unauthorised images of the saint is examined. Here it is shown that the Carmel sought to define Céline Martin as the sole authentic Theresian iconographer through recourse to ideas of religious and artistic authority, using the law of the secular state to make claims to religious authenticity. The first substantial piece of research placing Saint Thérèse in the context of the history of modern French popular religious culture, this thesis provides an insight into the creation of a commercial, devotional cult at the beginning of the twentieth century and the nature of Catholic visual culture in France in the years between the Dreyfus Affair and the Second Vatican Council. In examining the production and dissemination of a cult’s images, the intellectual and legal controversies that followed, and the use of these processes by the originators of the image to legitimate their representations, it also sheds light on prevalent ideas of religious and artistic authenticity in France in the early twentieth century and the search for the ‘true’ face of the saint during that period.

It is often assumed that medieval laypeople did not understand or follow the Latin church services they routinely attended. This thesis re-examines the role of the laity in medieval devotions and argues that careful attention to manuscripts reveals multi-layered levels of understanding and approaches to doctrine and the liturgy across lay and religious communities. It investigates the inter-relationship of literary text and its placement within the material manuscript, closely considering the ways in which word and image inform and illuminate each other. Sometimes these devotions take the form of Passion prayers adapted from the liturgy, such as the understudied vernacular translations of the early fourteenth-century hymn to the cross, Patris Sapiencia, and Anglo-Norman and English Mass Prayers. This thesis demonstrates that the placement of these prayers in medieval books reveals that they were intended actively to be read by the laity as they followed the vernacular alongside the Latin of medieval services. Other devotions take the form of lyric verse for private use. Placing these devotions in their proper contexts in laypeople’s medieval books reveals their theological depth, especially regarding lay understanding of and response to the doctrine of the atonement.

This thesis considers the civic elite in Coventry during the Reformation, from 1530-1580. It describes how the presence of a longstanding civic and political culture, dating back to the late middle ages, helped to mitigate religious change and bring other economic and social priorities to the fore during this period. The thesis looks at contemporary understanding of ideas of the city, including civic history and political power, as well as the economic forces which shaped the civic government?s interaction with other political hierarchies and the broader social world of the kingdom. It is argued that, although the corporation was keen to protect and define the political and physical boundaries of the city, they lived in an environment that was permeable to outside influence and the presence of geographically broad social and political networks. Urban political disputes are also examined, with the aim of elucidating those principles which ensured the smooth running of civic government and the control of the city by the corporation and the civic elite. Religious disagreements during the 1540s and 1550s are examined in detail, to show why, despite the potential for turmoil, the city never saw the breakdown of order or the political hierarchy. The spread of protestantism during later decades is dissected, alongside attempts to maintain urban religious provision at an acceptable standard, and to preserve the structures and hierarchies of civic religion. The thesis concludes that, even in cities like Coventry, where the effects of the dispute and dissonance that came with the growth of a new religion were strongest, it was possible for the traditional moral rules of urban governance to ensure that the city was an ordered and successful society well into the latter half of the sixteenth century.

This dissertation will argue that at an early stage in ecclesiastical history, the tradition's founding and constituent principles were betrayed by a complicity with the prevailing politics of sovereignty. This has led to a recasting of divine transcendence in terms of sovereign power and a displacement of Christianity by Christendom, from which the Western church has not recovered. The thesis follows the contours of contemporary theologians who seek to explain a dislocation between faith and socio- political life in terms of a fall in early modernity, but proposes that the earlier compromise represents a more decisive and determinative fall. In order to trace the genealogy of this compromise, the dissertation will examine its various manifestations in four synchronic historical studies. These are the third/fourth century writings of Eusebius of Caesarea; the early thirteenth century careers of Pope Innocent III and Emperor Frederick Il; the late seventeenth-century latitudinarianism of William Ill, Gilbert Burnet and the associated founding of the Bank of England; and the contemporary expression of what Hardt and Negri have termed 'Empire' and the rise of the politics of biopower. Through this genealogy, the historical alignment of the Christian church with the mundane politics of sovereign power will be demonstrated. The contemporary significance of this alignment, it will be argued, is that the Christian church is robbed of any political emancipatory potential. The final section of the dissertation will gesture towards ways in which theology may recover such a potential. Drawing on an alternative theological configuration which will already have been intimated in the four studies, the final section will develop an innovative Christological configuration of kenosis or what is termed 'kenarchy.' This will provide a re-imagining of the divine distinct from its implication with imperial sovereignty which could allow theology to make a more effective contemporary political intervention.

The extensive survival of late medieval bosses in the roofs of many parish churches in Devon has long been recognised. These carvings escaped the widespread destruction of images during the Reformation through their relative inaccessibility, and yet most have never before been recorded; nor has systematic study been made of their design, their positioning within a sacred space, or the ways in which they may have been viewed and used by a largely illiterate audience. This thesis rectifies this oversight in its detailed documentation and photography of figural roof bosses and contextual information from 121 churches across the county, appended as a gazetteer, and in its thorough analysis, which considers the varied interactions between the people of the parish and their carvings. The thesis reviews the literature on roof bosses in Britain, particularly the work of C.J.P. Cave whose studies have hitherto dominated the field, before considering materiality and method, namely the properties of oak, the dating of the timber, the carvers and the carving process, and the surface finish and visibility of roof bosses. The social, religious, and decorative context is then discussed, especially the role of ecclesiastical authorities in the life of the parish church and its people, and the motivation of patrons, clergy and laity in the decoration of their parish church. An exploration of motifs carved on roof bosses follows, with these motifs linked to other images within the parish church, the cathedral and the wider world, to the words of the sermon and the confessional, and to scriptural texts and popular literature. Medieval understandings of vision are considered, as are the circumstances in which roof bosses may have been seen and used. The thesis argues, in particular, that many bosses may have served as mnemonic devices and aids to prayer in a penitential process which sought to cure the soul of sin. The thesis concludes with case studies of six parish churches from across Devon which confirm that these carvings should be recognised as a significant resource for our understanding of the late medieval parish church and its people in the Diocese of Exeter and beyond.

Presbyterianism in the seventeenth century has often been seen as an alien and unpopular Scottish import, and its ministerial proponents as strident polemicists lacking a committed pastoral approach and doomed to failure in their struggle for further godly reformation. This thesis reappraises the development and articulation of orthodoxy and Presbyterianism through the experience of Thomas Hall, pastor and schoolmaster of Kings Norton, Worcestershire, a particularly rigid adherent of these views. It argues that Hall’s beliefs were home-grown responses to English religious and political changes in the 1630s, and explores their development and consolidation during the English Revolution. It also investigates ways he promoted his ideology through his pastoral ministry, his teaching, and his evangelical and polemical writings. Though militant against heresy, Hall’s willingness to engage with popular religious beliefs, to experiment with a variety of media and to present Calvinist ideals in a sympathetic and accessible manner, demonstrate a far more positive and flexible approach than historians have generally acknowledged. Much of the evidence centres on Hall’s unusually large and well-annotated library, and his own publications. This enables a detailed analysis of Hall’s reading practice and activities as a book-collector which were closely integrated with his polemical and religious priorities.

The traditional historiography of the English clergy, in the seventeenth century, has been in three parts, corresponding to the periods before, during and after the mid-century upheavals, with the years immediately following the Restoration often being subsumed into the eighteenth century. By contrast, in this thesis, as many as possible of the Canterbury diocesan clergy, excluding those in the peculiars, across the whole of the seventeenth century, have been identified and their characteristics analysed and tabulated. The resulting prosopography divides the clergy into two groups; cathedral and parish clergy including curates. Thematic chapters allow comparisons between cathedral and parish clergy and between these different categories of clergy present in the diocese in the three major periods of the seventeenth century and in selected years of the century. The prevalence of pluralism, defined as all clerical offices held, rather than merely offices with cure, is examined and this data is combined with the value of benefices and cathedral emoluments to estimate annual incomes. The results confirm that high incomes were restricted to the cathedral elite and a very limited number of parish clergy and that there were many poor vicars and curates, but it is suggested that this method is more robust than attempting to estimate wealth or standards of living. A dramatic reduction of the number of clergy in the diocese after the Restoration is revealed and attributed to sequestrations, ejections, and the chaos of the civil wars and Interregnum causing falling university attendances and reduced charitable giving. The will of a nonconformist, Clement Barling, provides the basis for innovative illustrations of the connections between the clergy and between them and certain of the laity and finally, it is shown that the numbers of sequestrations and ejections were probably much greater than previously estimated.