'Deor and nytenu mid us': animals in the works of Ǽelfric

This dissertation examines the use of animals in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and Catholic Homilies, outlining the transmission process of various sources of animal knowledge available to and used by Ælfric. The contexts in which Ælfric uses animals, which sources he uses in these passages and how he deviates from his source material (if at all) combine to illustrate how Anglo-Saxon authors could weave classical, biblical, early Christian and local knowledge together and incorporate the different traditions in their own work.

An Irish apostle: articulating and actualising apostolicity in the early Irish church

This thesis examines the earliest extant Latin Lives of Brigit and Patrick; Cogitosus’s Vita Brigidae and Muirchú’s Vita Patricii as evidence for a seventh-century debate on Irish apostolicity. While often dismissed as mere propaganda, this thesis shows they are highly sophisticated demonstrations of the continuing connection that Kildare and Armagh had to their patron saints and their authority. It examines the importance of this connection for concepts of ecclesiastical organisation, teaching authority and episcopal succession against the backdrop of the seventh-century Easter question in the Insular Church. This will show that apostolicity was considered to be intrinsically linked with orthodoxy and universality. A textual focus brings forth general patristic themes and ideas that Irish hagiographers evoked through specific words and phrases. The thesis contextualises hagiographical material using evidence from Hiberno-Latin and early Insular exegetical commentaries, referring to major patristic exegetes such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great as support. The introduction discusses the importance of apostolic ideology for the seventh-century Irish Church, and outlines a methodology for examining such abstract themes. The first chapter looks at how developments in apostolic ideology led to ideas of apostolic primacy seen in the Insular material. Chapters two, three, and four examine metaphors of food and feeding, the fountain and the stream, and the head and the body, as significant articulations of apostolicity. Chapter five examines how corporeal relics were understood as the visible proof of this continuity and preserved a saint’s authority for their episcopal heirs. Chapter six looks at how Muirchú engaged with Patrick’s connection to the universal Church and his self-professed lack of disciplina to reconcile his apostolicity with seventh-century norms. Chapter seven places the issues considered thus far in a thoroughly Insular context by examining how the earliest English sources present the Irish legacy in Northumbria after the synod of Whitby. Chapter eight looks at how the text of Patrick’s Confessio in the Book of Armagh relates to a wider seventh-century campaign by Armagh to rehabilitate Patrick’s apostolicity. The conclusion briefly summarizes the thesis, and suggests further avenues for researching this topic in the Insular material

Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin: an ecclesiastical microcosm of the twelfth-century Irish midlands

Betha Cholmáin maic Luacháin (BCh) is a key source of information about a small ecclesiastical community of the Irish midlands in the medieval period. BCh is one of the longest medieval Irish hagiographic texts. A sole copy exists. Scholarly concern with manuscript Rennes 598, and the Life of Colmán therein, diminished following the 1911 edition of BCh. The most attention paid to BCh in the following decades focused largely on its onomastic information. The necessary detailed study of the text has not been undertaken. The present work is an initial view of significant areas of interaction between the church of Lann and its ecclesiastical, social and political milieu. While social and cultural aspects of the text may constitute the focus of this study, linguistic data is also investigated, complementary to evidence regarding its social and political testimony. In this way, light is cast on a complex ecclesiastical microcosm in the twelfth-century Irish midlands. In keeping with recent methodological work in the field a variety of tools are used to aid investigation, and to show the Life within its genre and wider context. An interdisciplinary approach will bring together strands of literary, cultural, archaeological, onomastic, historical, geographical, genealogical and hagiographical information, with reference to linguistic evidence where appropriate. This thesis seeks to suggest a template for studies undertaken on smaller church communities, and is set out in two main sections. The first section investigates the figure of the saint, his life, church, the manuscript source and the combination of prose and verse in the text. The second section examines the testimony of the Life regarding the ecclesiastical and secular concerns of the community of Lann, and how these concerns are represented. Evidence regarding the members of this community and their interaction with the church and the wider world is also discussed.

Evidence for the Confraternity of S. Pietro Martire at San Zanipolo, Venice

This conference paper looks at evidence of 15th- and 16th-century saints' images on carved door frames at the church of S. Zanipolo (SS Giovanni e Paolo) in Venice, using them to help locate and reconstruct the history of the 'albergo' of the confraternity dedicated to St Peter Martyr and St Vincent Ferrer. Suggestions are made concerning the possible relationship of confraternity buildings outside a church to altars dedicated to the same saint(s) within that church.

History and Salvation in Lebor na hUidre

This chapter argues that the scribes of Lebor na hUidre show a persistent concern with eschatology, and in particular with the salvation of souls and the Last Judgement. In some cases the texts are overtly religious, but in a substantial number of cases they are explicitly or implicitly historical. The pivotal event is the mission of St Patrick, which is identified in several of the texts examined here as the origin of Christianity in Ireland. Pagans are repeatedly brought into contact with Christians/saints or other representatives of God, revealing the victory of Christianity and the subjugation of paganism. It is argued that the stories are to be placed within the medieval western theory of history according to which God’s plan for humanity was revealed through a study of the events of the past.

Somewhere near reality: artistic portrayal of violence in post WWII British realistic drama

ABSTRACT - I will explore and present the portrayal of violence in some British plays that were staged between 1951 and 1965, in order to discuss the role, impact and aim of its representation. Thus, I will consider John Whiting’s Saint’s Day (1951), Ann Jelicoe’s The Sport of my Mad Mother (1956), Arnold Wesker (Chicken Soup with Barley (1958), Harold Pinter’s Birthday Party (1958), David Rudkin’s Afore Night Come (1962) and Edward Bond’s Saved (1965). My aim is to discuss the way how theatre in the post WWII changed the traditional ways of representing violence. On one hand, violence and reality became more and more familiar and domestic, permitting a representation of multiple and non-agonic violence; and, on the other hand, the violence that was depicted often changed the way one perceived reality itself, being part of a socially engaged artistic attitude.

La Terre sainte (1875)

Périodicité : Bimens

Missale Trecense.

F. I. Calendrier de Troyes. P. 1. Temporal. P. 393. Dédicace. P. 395. Ordo missae, préface, canon. P. 435-610. Sanctoral : — s. Prudence (488) ; — sa Mastidia (500) ; — s. Loup (536) ; — s. Aderaldus (594). P. 610. Commun des saints. P. 657. Messes votives et diverses. P. 715. Proses. P. 747. Kyriale.

Lectionarium officii ad usum ecclesiae Parisiensis.

F. 1 Temporal. F. 124 S. Thomas de Cantorbéry. F. 128v Sanctoral (ste Geneviève). F. 187v Commun des saints (incompl. de la fin).

Diurnale ad usum ecclesiae Parisiensis.

F. 1 Absolutiones et benedictiones. F. 4v Preces. F. 14 Orationes communes ad suffragia. F. 19-50v Capitula propria : — Susceptio reliquiarum (37v), Sanctae Coronae (46), Sanctae Crucis (46v) ; — s. Louis (47) ; — s. Denis (49) ; — s. Marcel (50v). F. 51 Capitula communia sanctorum. F. 56 Oraisons du temporal. F. 81-116 Oraisons du sanctoral : — s. Lambert (106) ; — « In Vig. s. Dyonisii... ad processionem... ad ecclesiam Sancti Dyonisii de Passu » (108v). F. 116 Commun des saints. F. 122 Fragment relatif aux complies pour quelques fêtes. F. 123 Litanies de Paris et oraisons. F. 132 Offices des morts (incompl.).

Lectionarium officii ad usum ecclesiae Arelatensis.

F. 1-4v Noël (incompl. du début) : — Vers sibyllins (3v). F. 5 Fragment de l'office de s. Étienne. F. 7v S. Trophime (Gazay, dans Ann. du Midi, 1935, 227-229, d'après ce ms.). F. 127v S. Geniez. F. 147v S. André. F. 149v Dédicace. F. 151-153v et 162-171v Commun des saints. F. 154-161 Du 2e au 6e dim. après la Pentecôte. F. 172-174v Vita s. Marii, Badonensis abbatis (XIIIe s.). F. 174v Lectiones ad honorem... b. V. Mariae (XIIIe s.). F. 175v Kyrie des laudes de la Semaine sainte (XIIIe s.). F. 176v S. Césaire. Cf. Cavallin, Literarhist. Stud. (Lund, 1934), 126. F. 178 Dom. VII post Pent. F. 205v Dom. II mensis novembris (incompl. de la fin). Pour les vies de saints, cf. Cod. hag., III, 523.