The contribution of warlordism to the disintegration of the western Roman army (c. AD 395-480)

My thesis investigates the dynamics behind the changing nature of the leadership of the western Roman army in the fifth century through the concept of ‘warlordism’. I carried this out by analyzing those cases of insubordination and military unrest in the officer class of the western Roman army, which can be shown to be linked to the slow decline of central authority and the imperial office in the period 395-480. My thesis demonstrates that theories of ‘Warlordism’, as developed in social sciences, can be useful for both the late Imperial west as for other eras of ancient history, such as the late Roman republic. Warlordism was a way of continuing politics, if necessary by military means, when commanders found themselves outside the legitimate framework. Unlike the case of usurpation of the imperial office, when there was little hope of achieving permanent recognition and acceptance, it offered insubordinate officers a chance of returning to the ruling imperial regime depending on circumstances and the success of their resistance. I propose that warlordism functioned as an alternative to usurpation, a tool for military dissidence, fuelled by an economy of violence. Contrary to modern warlordism, the warlordism of the fifth century AD represented a transient phase which no imperial commander was willing to prolong indefinitely. At some stage, given the means, warlords in the western Roman army wanted to become part of the imperial echelon again. Yet these alternative methods of violent opposition, and the acquisition of force through private means, ensured the breakdown of the state’s monopoly on violence and the disintegration of centralized armies. What started as an accidental revolution became a new form of military rule.

Eleanor Roosevelt: supporting Zion, denying Palestine

Eleanor Roosevelt, as a renowned humanitarian, portrayed an inconsistency by supporting Zionist ambitions for a national homeland in Palestine while simultaneously ignoring the rights of the indigenous Palestinians. Because of this dichotomy, this dissertation explores her attitudes, her disposition and her position in light of the conflict in the region. It conveys how her particular character traits interplayed with the cultural influences prevalent in mid-century America and encouraged her empathy with the plight of European Jews after the Holocaust. As she evolved politically, initially under the tutelage of Franklin Roosevelt and latterly as a UN delegate, she outgrew the anti-Semitism of the period to become a committed Zionist. Judging the Palestinians as ‘primitives’ incapable of self-government and heartened by Jewish development, she supported the partition of Palestine in November 1947. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war the 800,000 Palestinian refugees encamped in neighbouring Arab states threatened to destabilise the region. Her solution was to discourage repatriation and to re-settle them in Iraq – a plan that directly contravened the principles of the December 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the UN committee she had chaired. No detailed work has been conducted on these aspects of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life; this dissertation reveals a complex person rather than a model of ‘humanitarianism’, and one whose activities cannot be so simply categorised. In the eight chapters that follow, her own thoughts are disclosed through her ‘My Day’ newspaper column, through letters to friends and to members of the public that petitioned her, through a scrutiny of her articles, books and autobiography. This information was attained as a result of archival research in the US and in The Netherlands and was considered against an extensive range of secondary literature. During the Cold War, to offset Soviet incursion, Eleanor Roosevelt promoted Jewish usurpation of Palestinian lands with equanimity in order that an industrious Western-style democracy would bring stability to the region. These events facilitated the exposure of a latent Orientalism and an imperialistic lien that fostered paternalism in a woman new to the nuances of international diplomacy.

Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England

This thesis, Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: Patronage, Politics and History in Lancastrian England, discusses the relationship between John Lydgate as a court poet to his patron Henry V. I contend that the Troy Book is explored as a vehicle to propagate the idea that the House of Lancaster is the legitimate successor to King Richard II in order to smooth over the usurpation of 1399. Paul Strohm's England's Empty Throne was a key influence to the approach of this thesis' topic. I examine that although Chaucer had a definitive impact on Lydgate's writing, Lydgate is able to manipulate this influence for his own ambitions. In order to enhance his own fame, Lydgate works to promote Chaucer's canon so that as Chaucer's successor, he will inherit more prestige. The Trojan war is seen in context with the Hundred Years War, and can be applied contextually to political events. Lydgate presents characters that are vulnerable to human failings, and their assorted, complicated relationships. Lydgate modernises the Troy Book to reflect and enhance his Lancastrian society, and the thesis gives a contextual view of Lydgate's writing of the Troy Book. Lydgate writes for a more varied target audience than his thirteenth-century source, Guido delle Colonne, and there is a deliberation on the female characters of the Troy Book which promulgates the theory that Lydgate takes a proactive and empathetic interest in women's roles in society. Furthermore Lydgate has never really been accepted as a humanist, and I look at Lydgate's work from a different angle; he is a self-germinating humanist. Lydgate revives antiquity to educate his fifteenth-century audience, and his ambition is to create a memorial for his patron in the vernacular, and enhance his own fame as a poet separate from Chaucer's shadow.