bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Thomas Hardy, Rutland Boughton, and The Queen of Cornwall
Authors: Reel Edmèe , Reel Jerome V.
Published: April 2015

Thomas Hardy collaborated with the British composer Rutland Boughton to create the opera The Queen of Cornwall from Hardy's play. This article traces the creation, premiere, reception, and performance history of the opera.
Arthur and the Turks
Authors: Roland Meg
Published: April 2015

The concluding passage of Le Morte Darthur must be questioned as an authorially requested re-reading of the Arthurian narrative and considered, instead, as evidence of how Caxton, through editing and paratextual framing, sought to historicize Arthur and the Crusades.
A Pictorial Source For the Grail Maiden?
Authors: Nickel Helmut
Published: April 2015

'The Grail is, in one of its aspects, a historical and literary puzzle, and there is an insatiable appetite for solutions to such mysteries and puzzles.'
Saracens and Black Knights
Authors: Keita Maghan
Published: April 2015

This is an inquiry into the possible cultural constructions of the 'Saracen' and the epistemological and historiographic equation of the Saracen as Moor, African, and even 'black' within the body of Arthuriana.
Malory's Use of 'Counsel' and 'Advyce' in Creating a King
Authors: Reynolds Meredith
Published: April 2015

Malory concentrates his use of the words 'counsel' and 'advyce' around the figure of Arthur in the 'Merlin' section of The Tale of King Arthur , thus associating Arthur's development into a good king with these concepts.
Malory And Cardiff
Authors: Field P.J.C.
Published: April 2015

When Malory's life and his book are considered together, it appears that he probably visited Cardiff and thought of it as an unexpectedly Arthurian locality.
Sir Thomas Malory's Narrative of Faith
Authors: Grimm Kevin T.
Published: April 2015

Malory's narrative is an expression of a deeply held personal faith and as such bears significant resemblance to biblical narrative.
Back from the Queste : Malory's Launcelot Enrages Gwenyvere
Authors: Gaylord Alan
Published: April 2015

This essay takes a close look at Launcelot's disastrous speech in defense of his avoidance of Gwenyvere for fear of scandal.
Reading Aloud with Tom Hanks: A Reader's Perspective
Authors: Thomas Paul
Published: April 2015

This article traces D. Thomas Hanks, Jr.'s skill as a reader of fourteenth-and fifteenth-century Middle English texts, with special attention to his research into reading Malory aloud and his patience in teaching others to read Le Morte Darthur in the received pronunciation of late-fifteenth-century English.
The Clash of Genres at the Siege of Benwick
Authors: Farrell Thomas J.
Published: April 2015

In 'The Siege of Benwick,' Malory's generic shift from romance to epic validates Gawain's determination to fight to the death rather than Launcelot's consistent deferral of their conflict.
A Possible Arthurian Epitome in a Tenth-Century Manuscript from Cornwall
Authors: Gwara Scott
Published: April 2015

'De raris fabulis,' an early tenth-century text from Wales or Cornwall, preserves colloquies used by monastic oblates to practice conversational Latin. It yields a potential Arthurian context and may represent the first known account of Arthur's continental war against Rome, as detailed in Historia regum and hinted at in the 'Life of St Goeznovius.'
Patient Lancelot and Impatient Gawain in the Queste del Saint Graal
Authors: Owen Corey
Published: April 2015

Medieval patience traditions influenced the characterizations of Lancelot and Gawain in the Old French Queste del Saint Graal . The virtue of patience is important in the ethical system of the narrative. Endurance, the nature of suffering, and the relationship between patience and the passions inform the adventures of the two knights.
La Joie de la Cort ( Érec et Énide ), Mabon, and Early Irish síd [peace; Otherworld]
Authors: Sayers William
Published: April 2015

The several anomalies of the Joie de la Cort episode in Chrétien de Troyes's Érec et Énide are addressed through the dual semantics of Irish síd , the equation of radiance and joy in the Celtic languages, and Mabon's imprisonment in the 'Bright Portress' of Caer Loyw.
Arthurian Tradition and the Middle Dutch Torec
Authors: Kerth Thomas
Published: April 2015

This essay compares the stock situations in Torec with those found in earlier romances of Chrétien de Troyes and German romanciers in order to demonstrate that the author(s) of Torec was familiar with the topoi of the 'classical' Arthurian romances and exploited them.
About the Knight with Two Swords and the Maiden under a Tree
Authors: Nickel Helmut
Published: April 2015

A good story is a good story, no matter which language it is told in. Tracing a set of seemingly irrelevant story motifs associated to the main motif of the hero with two swords can lead to the 'Ur-Epos' of the Eurasian continent as the common source.
The Staff in the Stone: Finding Arthur's Sword in the Vita Sancti Edwardi of Aelred of Rievaulx
Authors: Dutton Marsha L.
Published: April 2015

The source for the story of Arthur's drawing the sword that would make him king seems likely to be a miracle involving Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, his episcopal staff, and a saintly king's tomb, found in Aelred of Rievaulx's Vita Sancti Edwardi, Regis et Confessoris .
Haunting Pieties: Malory's Use of Chivalric Christian Exempla after the Grail
Authors: Hodges Kenneth
Published: April 2015

Malory's 'The Poisoned Apple' and 'The Healing of Sir Urry' are linked to Christian exempla that assign moral and theological meaning to knightly action. The absence of morals supplied by the narrator, however, forces the audience to decide for themselves how to resolve the various inter- and intra-textual tensions, and raises questions of how much moral authority resides within the matter of exempla and how much is a matter of the author's intention or the audience's will.
The Intended Audience of Irish Arthurian Romances
Authors: Smelik Bernadette
Published: April 2015

Between the fourteenth and seventeenth century five Arthurian romances were written in the Irish language. This article compares the narrative structure of these romances and their portrayal of King Arthur to French Arthurian verse romances and considers the intended audience for Irish Arthurian Romance.
Sir Tarquin and The Holy Grail at Hawkstone Park
Authors: Simpson Roger
Published: April 2015

An examination of the creation and transmission of localised Arthurian legend over two centuries at a major English landscape garden.
Medieval Irish Language and Literature: An Orientation for Arthurians
Authors: Sayers William
Published: April 2015

Reasons and means are outlined for students and scholars of Arthurians letters to familiarize themselves with a unique and rich corpus of medieval literature.
Walewein ende Keye and the Strategies of Honor
Authors: Putter Ad
Published: April 2015

This close reading of Walewein ende Keye focuses on its symbolic economy of honor and shame in the light of anthropological work by Pierre Bourdieu and others, arguing that Gawain and Kay exemplify contrary approaches to the competition for honor.
The Double Life of Malory's Lancelot du Lake
Authors: Jesmok Janet
Published: April 2015

Lancelot, Malory's paragon of chivalry, harbors a defiant alter-ego first evident only through double adversaries, but later erupting in violent action generally repressed by the chivalric code. Through this dark Other, Malory develops his hero's subjectivity as he interrogates fifteenth-century knighthood.
'Seldom does anyone listen to a good exemplum': Courts and Kings in Torec and Die Riddere metter Mouwen
Authors: Echard Siân
Published: April 2015

This essay examines the use of outsider characters in the Middle Dutch romances of Torec and the Riddere metter Mouwen . It draws on the deployment of similar characters in two Latin romances, the Historia Meriadoci and De Ortu Waluuanii , to show a shared interest, across the Dutch and Latin texts, in courtliness and right rule.
Self-Gratifying Adventure and Self-Conscious Narrative in Lanceloet en het Hert met de Witte Voet
Authors: Twomey Michael W.
Published: April 2015

This essay argues that Lanceloet en het Hert met de Witte Voet expresses its literary self-consciousness—and therefore its debt to earlier Arthurian romances rather than to folklore—by altering the motif of the hunt for a white stag to a hunt for a white-footed stag and by aligning Lanceloet with other episodes of stag-hunting in Arthurian romances that devolve into the self-gratification of the male participants' desire for adventure.
The Early Modern Period in the First 100 Years of The Catholic Historical Review
Authors: Bireley Robert
Published: April 2015

This article surveys the CHR ’s coverage of early modern Europe, roughly from 1450 to 1700, over the past 100 years. It looks at three main features of the period: the Renaissance understood as a cultural and intellectual movement, the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Reform. It concludes that the CHR can be justifiably proud of its treatment of the period. The interpretation of the Renaissance as pagan, as found in Jakob Burckhardt’s classic, gradually yielded to one that recognized its Christian features. Polemics were generally avoided in the treatment of the Reformation. The life and thought of Martin Luther drew more attention than did any other individual. Events in England generally predominated. The CHR devoted more space to the Catholic Reform than to the Renaissance or the Reformation. Here two issues stood out: the name to be given to the Catholicism of the period, and the degree of continuity between medieval Catholicism in England and the Catholicism that emerged after the arrival of the missionaries in 1580.
From a Catholic Identity to an American View: Historical Studies, Reviews, and Fundamentals in Articles on Late Modern and Contemporary Europe
Authors: Melloni Alberto
Published: April 2015

The CHR has always paid attention to modern European history in its pages. But the meaning of what modern European history entailed varied over its history. At the beginning the journal presented Catholic research on the different origins of American Catholic cultures. In the central decades of the twentieth century, the focus shifted to Europe as a bona fide research subject that had significance for American history. A later tendency offers evidence for the American effort to be a leader and active partner in the main debates about a global historiography.
From Epic to Romance: The Literary Transformation of Private Blood Feud into Societal Ressentiment
Authors: Pantazakos Michael
Published: April 2015

In this essay the author presents a comparative critique of the Chanson de Roland and Beowulf . Using Nietzsche’s theory of ressentiment , he examines how the Roland represents a literary transformation from the epic to the Romantic that mirrors the turbulent social changes of the late eleventh century, which were not only violently acted out but comparably symbolized in a novel form of anti-Semitism resulting from a rejection of elder heroic values, as embodied in Beowulf , for a new world-view, as expressed in the emerging Romantic genre. Driven by Anselm’s revolutionary theological recasting of the sacrifice of the Crucifixion and its attendant suffering as the heart of Christian belief, which marked a radical change from the prior Anglo-Saxon spirituality that did not worship sacrosanct victimization but rather Christ as Hero, the author examines the literary aspects of a conceptual evolution from private blood feud to an unprecedented societal foundation of ressentiment by comparing the respective “heroes” of Beowulf and the Roland . In this regard, the author paradigmatically contrasts the Roland ’s Charlemagne, who willfully subverts the law to further his passions and ambitions, against the eponymous protagonist of Beowulf , who struggles to remain always faithful to the ealde riht , the “old law.”
“Moor, she was chaste. She loved thee, cruel moor.”: Othello as a Starting Point for Alternative Dramatic Representations of the Female Voice
Authors: Corporaal Marguérite
Published: April 2015

The common association between woman’s speech and wantonness which dominated cultural discourses in Renaissance England, marked the representation of female characters in most Jacobean tragedies. As will be shown in this paper, William Shakespeare’s Othello marks an important breach with this conventional depiction of women, and introduces alternative gender discourses which legitimize woman’s self expression and dissociate the female voice from sexual incontinence. The subversive views on female utterance explored in Othello reappear in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam . However, the latter two plays push the tragic generic bondaries even further by drastically reconstructing the gender discourses concerning the issue of tragic transcendence.
The Letter of Fredegisus of Tours on Nothingness and Shadow: A New Translation and Commentary
Authors: Jun Nathan J.
Published: April 2015

“The Letter of Fredegisus of Tours on Nothingness and Shadow: A New Translation and Commentary.” Fredegisus of Tours was an Anglo-Saxon scholar who studied under Alcuin of York and later served at the court of Charlemagne. Although he was apparently well respected by his peers, specific details concerning his life are scarce. His only surviving work is a brief epistle entitled De Nihil et Tenebris . This article provides a new translation of the letter, based on Migne 1851 edition, along with biographical information about its author, a brief critical history of the text, and a commentary on Fredegisus’s significance in the history of Western philosophy. The author argues, against extant critical accounts, that Fredegisus evinces a much higher level of philosophical sophistication than is usually attributed to him. This is evidenced by certain crucial similarities between the De Nihil and Augustine’s De Magistro , as well as the decidedly Platonic overtones of Fredegisus’s doctrine of nothingness.
The Poetics and Praxis of Enclosure: Julian of Norwich, Motherhood, and Rituals of Childbirth
Authors: King Claire Sisco
Published: April 2015

This essay locates Julian of Norwich’s textual construction of Christ’s maternity within a set of material practices, arguing that the “meaning” of Christ’s maternity within Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love cannot be fully understood outside of the context of the interrelated ritualized practices of medieval childbirth and anchoritism. Specifically, this essay contends that Julian’s experience as an anchoress, her images of Christ as mother, and medieval ceremonies of childbirth are threaded together by a discourse and a praxis of enclosure in which the cell of the medieval anchoress resembles and recalls the lying-in chamber of a medieval mother. Understanding ritual practice as constitutive of knowledge and subjectivity, the author argues that Julian’s textual fascination with Christ’s motherhood should be understood as deriving from the material parallels that existed between her experiences as an anchoress and those of laboring women and new mothers in the Middle Ages.
The Economy of Legal Images and Legal Texts in Sixteenth-Century Law Books: The Case of Praxis Crimins Presequendi
Authors: Hershenzon Daniel
Published: April 2015

This article examines Praxis criminis presequendi , a legal manual published in Paris in 1542, which is paradigmatic of a new kind of illustrated legal book that appeared in sixteenth-century Europe. One of the main features characterizing these legal books are woodcuts that do not merely decorate the text, but also illustrate and comment on it, thereby creating two competing and complementing reading paths—one visual, one textual. By applying the reoccurring visual theme of the documenting court scribe and the documents he produces, this kind of book establishes a complex economy of textual and visual modes of representation. Praxis criminis presequendi ’s images assert the superiority of the text they illustrate by manifesting their inability to represent its contents; at the same time, however, the images subvert textual authority by revealing the contexts that were meant to stay hidden. Moving between historical analysis, legal discourse, and a close reading of text-image relationships, this article argues for the instability of the textual mode of representation in the legal domain.
A Tale of Two Codices: The Medieval Registers of the Order of the Garter
Authors: Gumus T. Tolga
Published: April 2015

This article compares two extant versions of the medieval register of the Most Noble Order of St. George of the Garter—one published, the other still unpublished—in an attempt to determine which manuscript preserves the text of the original, now lost, register more faithfully. Following a brief sketch of the history of the Order in the late Middle Ages and description of the two manuscripts in question, I compare the evidence of the two codices according to three categories of information contained therein: lists of attendance for the Order’s chapter meetings; records of irregular events; and finally the scrutiny lists, which record the knights’ nominations for new members. I argue that while one version, an early modern copy, generally preserves the superior text, both manuscripts should be taken into consideration when reconstructing the history of the Order.
Elizabeth Russell’s Textual Performances of Self
Authors: Malay Jessica L.
Published: April 2015

Elizabeth Russell was a scholar, courtier, and religious activist during the reign of Elizabeth I. She was one of the famous Cooke sisters, and her early education included training in Latin, Greek, and modern European languages. She authored a diverse set of texts, including elegies, translations, prefaces, and progress entertainments, gaining a reputation as one of the most learned women in England. Through her texts she performed a narrative in which she promoted and published her preferred identity as the powerful matriarch of an increasingly successful elite family or “house.” This identity, buffeted by the deaths of two husbands and the political vagaries of the time, required constant renegotiation both in its public manifestation and personal conceptualization. Her texts negotiated with culturally established definitions of the ideal “female,” both appropriating discourses allowed to women and circumventing the restrictions for self-expression inherent in these discourses through a variety of discursive, spatial, and visual strategies.
Theatrical and National Spaces in Cymbeline
Authors: Paul Gavin
Published: April 2015

This article explores the manner in which Cymbeline works to create a feeling of geographic scope and a sense of a coherent national space within the bounds of the theatre. To do so means examining the play’s experimentation with perspective, its fascination with the limits of eyesight, as well as its emphasis on movement and travel. Notions of perspective, time, and space are pervasive in Cymbeline ; accordingly, it is a play that frequently identifies and strains against the physical boundaries of the stage. Nevertheless, as evidenced by Simon Forman’s account of the play (1611), meta-theatrical moments that highlight the physical restrictions of the theatre coalesce with moments that revel in its physical possibilities. With references to early modern cartography, Marlowe’s Tamburlaine , Shakespeare’s Henry V , and the writings of King James, I contend that as Cymbeline telescopes between meta-theatrical and theatrical effects, the theatrical experience—the proclivity to imaginatively participate—is enhanced.
A Place among the Leaves: The Manuscript Contexts of Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls
Authors: Preston Todd
Published: April 2015

A consideration of the manuscript contexts of Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls provides a window onto the possible medieval reception of poem. Due to the content of the poem, many modern interpretations of the Parliament variously describe the poem as one devoted to courtly love, common profit, or some admixture thereof. However, a more contextual and contemporary vision of the poem emerges by analyzing the Parliament in terms of the texts with which it travels. An analysis of the fourteen manuscript contexts of this dream vision reveal that the poem more typically functions as either as part of a general miscellany or as part of an author-anthology devoted to Chaucerian works. Ultimately, rather than suggesting a single thematic approach to the Parliament , the investigation of its manuscript contexts suggests the need to approach each manuscript on its own, unique terms.
The Myth of the Androgyne in Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love
Authors: Pescatori Rossella
Published: April 2015

In Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love (1535) a particular space is dedicated to the Androgyne’s Myth. This article elucidates how this Myth condenses in itself the Dialogues ’ philosophical system. Having in mind Plato, Ficino, Pico, and the Spanish Kabbalah, with obvious references to the book of Zohar , Leone puts Love as the principle which governs the whole universe, and emphasizes that in the entire universe there is a radical polarity in terms of male and female symbols. This cosmological issue is connected to the creative force of language, which analogically reproduces reality. In fact, there must be a division between signifier and signified, between form and content, between fabula and historia , in order to have a world or a reality. The Dialogues ’ two interlocutors, Sofia and Filone, represent, in fact, two halves of the androgyne whose names, when united, form the composite body that we call “philo-sophy.”
Panting Sentinels: Erotics, Politics, and Redemption in the Friendship Poetry of Katherine Philips (1631–1664)
Authors: Stanton Kamille Stone
Published: April 2015

After reviewing recent literary criticism regarding the erotic potential and political implications of Katherine Philips’s friendship verses, this essay works directly from Poems (1667) to argue that the poet’s conceptualization of friendship was as a vehicle for religious redemption inspired by Queen Henrietta Maria’s devout humanism and the Caroline court’s Religion of Love. Although current Philips criticism discusses the stated devotional aims of same-sex friendship as the poet’s efforts to deflect potential sexualized readings, this essay finds that in the only edition of Philips’s poetry that was authorized by the poet, friendship and religious redemption are thoroughly intertwined.
Jewish-Christian Debate and the Didacticism of Drama in the Jeu D’adam
Authors: Lee Christopher
Published: April 2015

This article takes a closer look at the understudied debate between Isaiah and Judeus in the Anglo-Norman Jeu d’Adam , situating their exchange within the larger context of twelfth-century Jewish-Christian polemical literature. Consistent with this tradition, Jewish doubt in the play prompts responses designed to provide instruction for a Christian audience. The play differs in that Judeus’s objections, informed by Augustinian semiotics, range beyond the proper interpretation of Old Testament signs to question the ability of the play itself and the dramatic medium in general to present sacred truth. Isaiah’s response likewise draws on Augustinian sign theory to defend the superiority of visual signs, or res significandi , over words in teaching Christian doctrine. This vindication of dramatic res is reflected in the extensive use of stage directions, props, costumes, gestures, and scenery as a means of communicating meaning in the play as a whole.
Silver and Gold: A Case Study of Material Culture in Renaissance Mantua
Authors: Taylor Valerie
Published: April 2015

Using the Gonzaga court of Mantua as a case study, this article discusses the goldsmiths of Mantua who were employed by them. Additionally, artisans both within and beyond the city are identified and examined through documentary evidence such as letters, household records, inventories, and accounts. The aim is to investigate the impact of patronage on the design and fashioning of costly objects wrought in silver and gold which enhanced Renaissance material culture. By examining the written exchanges that took place between the Gonzaga and their goldsmiths, agents and intermediaries, it is possible to understand the many different ways that the family acquired plate. These communications also serve to document the nature of the nuanced power relationship that dominated commissions and negotiations between patrons and artisans as well as the possible levels of status and significance implied in the term nostro aurifice .
Romantic Love as Natural Right in Béroul’s Romance of Tristan
Authors: Anderson J. M.
Published: April 2015

This essay reconsiders Béroul’s justification of the adulterous affair of Tristan and Iseut in The Romance of Tristan . By examining the interplay between literature, philosophy, and law in the twelfth century, it compares contemporary theories of natural law and natural right with Béroul’s idea of romantic love. It shows not only that romantic love for Béroul had many attributes of natural right, but that based on these similarities, Béroul views romantic love as a new standard of morality, outside and above the conventions of religion and society. On this basis he justifies Tristan and Iseut’s adultery and exonerates them from their illicit affair. Like Peter Abelard’s Intentionalist ethics, with which Béroul’s subjective morality is compared, his position shows just how radical romantic love was in the twelfth century. Although fiction, The Romance of Tristan challenged the feudal, social, and religious conventions of medieval society in Béroul’s day.
Wounds of Love: Dantean Pazïenza and the Poetics of Mourning Dido in the Late Middle Ages
Authors: Bowen Kerri A.
Published: April 2015

Considering Dante’s ambition to reconcile classical philosophy and Christian theology in his Commedia , this article articulates a theory of Dantean “pazïenza” as a Christian-paradoxical resolution of the Virgilian disconnect between erotic passion and stoicism. Dante’s image of “pazïenza” in Purgatorio 10 exemplifies how the poet’s attempts to transcend Virgilian pathos are often coterminous with his attempts to transcend Virgilian ekphrasis. Consequently, the image works to illuminate what is at stake in Dante’s various appropriations of Dido’s image and voice in the Commedia . Drawing upon the work of Kenneth Gross, James Heffernan, Henry Staten, Jacques Derrida, and others, the article explores Dantean “pazïenza” as an erotic, spiritual, and narrative principle: one that interrogates the connections between the force of the image in ekphrasis and the force of the image in mourning, between the movements of narrative and the ends of human love.
Medieval Optimism and a Sober Renaissance: A Comparison of the Anthropologies of John Scottus Eriugena and Marsilio Ficino
Authors: Bryson James
Published: April 2015

John Scottus Eriugena (d. 877) and Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), the leading humanist philosopher-theologians of their respective periods, espouse anthropocentric cosmologies drawing on an early medieval tradition of Christian Neoplatonism. The similarity of their anthropologies is a testament to the continuity of the Neoplatonic tradition before and after the rediscovery of the Platonic corpus and its Neoplatonic commentators in the Latin West. On close inspection of the metaphysical frameworks which support their systems, it is clear that Ficino and Eriugena are ultimately depending on distinct philosophical spirits, which can be traced back to an early division within pagan Neoplatonism between Plotinian and Iamblichean-Procline lines. The contrast between Ficino’s and Eriugena’s metaphysics is a testament to how the fracture within the Neoplatonic tradition works itself out in its appropriation by Christian thinkers. This article shows how Eriugena’s sympathy for the later pagan developments, mediated to him by the Pseudo-Dionysius, results in a more optimistic anthropology, than Ficino’s use of Plotinus and Augustine. The wider implications of this comparison for study of the Latin West are plain.
Multilingual Translation and Multiple Knowledge(s) in Alfonso X’s Libro de la Ochava Esfera (1276)
Authors: Bistué Belén
Published: April 2015

The composition of the astronomical-and-astrological treatise known as the Libro de la ochava esfera involved several translators and compilers. They produced oral and written versions of aṣ-Ṣufī’s Book of the Figures of the Fixed Stars (itself based on a translation of Ptolemy’s star-catalog), and they consulted previous Arabic and Latin versions of these works. This article follows the traces that the collaborative-translation process left in the treatise’s many multilingual phrases, which combine alternative names for the constellations in Castilian, Latin, Arabic, and Greek. It argues that this translation practice worked as a conceptual model for the type of knowledge(s) ( saberes ) the treatise offered. The analysis and argument are inscribed in a discussion of the paradoxical place that the Libro de la ochava esfera occupies in the history of Spanish literature, and they offer a formal ground for challenging dominant conceptualizations of textual production and interpretation, which are based on a monolingual model.
Remaking Matrimony: Raphael and Perugino’s Innovative Portrayals of the Marriage of the Virgin
Authors: Drummond Anna
Published: April 2015

At the turn of the fifteenth century, both Raphael and Perugino painted magnificent altarpieces depicting the Marriage of the Virgin. The paintings seem to be the first to use the Marriage of the Virgin as the subject of an altarpiece, rather than as a subsidiary scene in a fresco or on a predella. This also appears to be the first occasion on which this marriage was represented as part of devotion to St. Joseph, rather than to his wife. These developments were prompted by a number of factors including growing cult attention to St. Joseph and the specific requirements of a reliquary chapel in Perugia.
Renaissance Devotion and the Volto Santo of Lucca
Authors: Fishburne James
Published: April 2015

The Volto Santo of Lucca is a monumental painted wooden crucifix which has been housed in the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca since the Middle Ages. The work was considered a non-corporal relic and was purported to show the actual face of Christ. A new chapel for the Volto Santo was completed by Matteo Civitali in 1484, thereby reframing the relic and applying additional sacramental meaning to the crucifix in order to satisfy the evolving spiritual demands of Renaissance worshippers. The structure conditioned the experience of the viewer, presenting the Volto Santo in a setting evocative of Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Holy Sepulcher. The chapel highlighted these aspects of Christianity which were familiar to worshippers, while allowing for a unique and intimate encounter with the divine.
Producing Women: Textile Manufacture and Economic Power on Late Medieval and Early Modern Stages
Authors: Higginbotham Derrick
Published: April 2015

This essay demonstrates that late medieval and early modern theatrical representations of spinsters and seamstresses connect their labor to a virtuous exercise of authority because this work was vital to the commercial success of the cloth and clothing trades. This continuity in the portrayal of female cloth-workers queries the notion of a sharp divide between late medieval and early modern literary periods. The Digby manuscript’s Candlemas Day and the Killing of the Innocents play (ca. 1512), in particular, discloses a dramatic template when depicting spinsters that Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s The Roaring Girl (1611) appropriates and revises when representing a seamstress. Contextualizing dramatic images of women’s work in the textile trade with visual illustrations of workingwomen, this essay also shows that the theater sometimes contests the contemporary critique of women’s participation in economic activity by representing their labor as worthy.
Le Temps Venra: Establishing Visual Legitimacy in the Petites Heures of Jean De Berry
Authors: Courts Jennifer E.
Published: April 2015

Jean de Berry’s first-known devotional manuscript commission, the Petites Heures , takes advantage of current visual strategies for personal promotion in order to allow the book to serve a dual function as an object of political propaganda and a tool for individual devotion. Through the use of repeated visual and textual programs present in earlier books, as well as recurring images of princely prayer, the Petites Heures presented Jean de Berry as capable regent and the Valois as the legitimate successors of the Capetian Dynasty. Representative of the duke’s political ambitions, his motto Le temps venra , highlights his readiness to lead France through a campaign of magnificence and opulent splendor. Exploration of the patronage strategies employed within the Petites Heures reveal the role of the visual arts in constructing legitimate identity in France during the tumultuous period of the Hundred Years’ War.
Making a Marriage in Medieval Padua
Authors: Alexander Michael J.
Published: April 2015

Over the course of the fifteenth century, sixty-four plaintiffs brought suit in the Paduan ecclesiastical court to enforce a disputed vow. Although the Church had established a theory of marriage that relied solely on the exchange of freely given consent, these matrimonial suits show that the laity was not content to define marriage in solely spiritual terms. In case after case, we find plaintiffs presenting a wide variety of proofs of marriage, especially the carnal consummation of vows that the Church had tried to render ancillary from the twelfth century onwards. Most striking are the instances in which plaintiffs reproduced the vows exchanged; when rendered in Latin, they are consistently formulaic, but twelve times the plaintiffs entered the vernacular words exchanged, words that show much more individuality and allow us to approach more directly their understanding of what constituted a valid marriage.
Material Value and Immaterial Vision: The Role of Real and Represented Gems in the Gospels of Saint-Médard of Soissons
Authors: Sciampacone Amanda
Published: April 2015

Produced during a period in which images were seen as inferior to words, and circulated and accessed by an educated and wealthy Carolingian elite, the Gospels of Saint-Médard of Soissons displayed an excess of matter. From the vellum pages painted with portraits of the evangelists framed by precious stones and engraved gems to the ivory or gold and jeweled covers, the physical substance of the book asserted the sacredness of Scripture and aided the viewer in comprehending the invisible, heavenly realm. However, as is argued, the juxtaposition of real and represented gems also troubled a viewer’s access to God by confronting the viewer with multiple and contradictory materialities. As a result, the Soissons Gospels revealed the insufficiency of the material to picture the spiritual, and forced the viewer to struggle through these materialities in order to transcend them and approach God through the correct path—immaterial, intellectual vision.
The Fifth Funeral in Beowulf : “fyr on flode” as a Viking Burial and Other Untenable Claims
Authors: Miller T. S.
Published: April 2015

Scholars and translators of Beowulf have offered a number of mutually exclusive interpretations of the literal and symbolic meaning of the description that Hrođgar gives of the mysterious phenomenon of the “fyr on flode” at Grendel’s mere. Reading this confusion as symptomatic of the mere’s larger function in the poem as the quintessential site of the proliferation of signification, we can discern in particular the mere’s central role in negotiating Christian and pagan constructions of the passage from life to death. The resonance of the imagery used to describe the mere with that used to describe the poem’s many funerals allows us to establish a parallel that suggests the equally uncertain and fluid nature of the poem’s depiction of these conflicting spiritual temporalities. Comparing the mere imagery with its sources or analogues, including those in the Eddic tradition, will sharpen our sense of this conflict, but finally the mere must remain ungraspable as anything but ungraspable.
Usury in the Inferno : Auditing Dante’s Debt to the Scholastics
Authors: Ravenscroft Simon
Published: April 2015

There is a close connection between Dante’s portrayal of usury in the Inferno and wider scholastic argumentation on the subject. Reading Dante’s account in light of the scholastic critique of usury reveals a conceptual depth and clarity to the former which has, in the absence of such a reading, remained unfortunately opaque. Dante’s treatment is informed by three of the four main scholastic arguments against usury, which are centered around the themes of the nature and purpose of money, the relation between labor and a just recompense, and the medieval vision of society as an harmonious whole. Each of these themes are weaved by Dante into his poem in a range of diverse ways, yet the final (social) element is arguably a unifying factor. In this regard, his account of usury can be read in continuity with other critiques of ‘bad commerce’ which are in evidence throughout the Inferno .
Why Are Students (Not) Motivated to Change Academic Procrastination?: An Investigation Based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change
Authors: Grunschel Carola , Schopenhauer Lena
Published: April 2015

In light of the drawbacks of academic procrastination, it is surprising that not all students want to decrease academic procrastination. To find out why students are motivated (or not) to change academic procrastination, we investigated the characteristics of 377 German students with different motivations to change based on the Transtheoretical Model of change. The students who did not contemplate changing their behavior were not negatively affected by academic procrastination, in contrast to those students who intended to reduce academic procrastination. The students who started to decrease academic procrastination presented themselves as optimistic. Based on our results, we suggest offering tailormade interventions to help students successfully overcome academic procrastination.
Nonsuicidal Self-Injury: Exploring the Connection Among Race, Ethnic Identity, and Ethnic Belonging
Authors: Wester Kelly L. , Trepal Heather C.
Published: April 2015

This study examined race and ethnic identity in relation to nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Participants included freshmen at 2 universities, who were predominantly female. Final inferential statistics examined differences across Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian American, and Multiracial students, finding African Americans and Asian Americans having significantly lower NSSI engagement than all other racial groups, and no other significant differences across groups. After controlling for depression and anxiety, a sense of ethnic belonging was significantly related to NSSI engagement. Cultural implications exist for working with college students who self-injure.
Comparing Psychosocial Adjustment Across the College Transition in a Matched Heterosexual and Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Sample
Authors: Kirsch Alexandra C. , Conley Colleen S. , Riley Tracey J.
Published: April 2015

We compared a matched sample of heterosexual and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students on 5 psychosocial adjustment composites, longitudinally across the transitional first year of college. Both LGB and heterosexual students experienced a significant increase in psychological distress over the first semester, along with significant decreases in psychological well-being and cognitive-affective strengths. Across the entire first year, LGB students demonstrated consistently greater psychological distress, greater cognitive-affective vulnerabilities, and less social well-being compared to heterosexual peers. This research indicates specific challenges that LGB students experience during the first year of university, suggesting opportunities for promoting successful transitions through this developmental milestone.
Avian Use of Black-Tailed Prairie Dog Colonies in Shortgrass Prairie
Authors: Ray James D. , Wallace Mark C. , McCaffrey Rachel E.
Published: April 2015

Downward trends in populations of many grassland bird species are of conservation concern. Declines in black-tailed prairie dog ( Cynomys ludovicianus ) populations result in loss of habitat for birds and other species associated with their colonies. We measured abundance, diversity, and species composition of avian communities on prairie dog colonies and noncolony sites in the Texas Panhandle. More resident species ( P < 0.001) occurred on prairie dog colonies than on noncolony areas whereas, more nearctic-neoptropical migrants ( P = 0.003) and nearctic-temperate migrants ( P < 0.001) occurred on noncolony sites. Total avian abundance was greater ( P < 0.001) on noncolony sites than at prairie dog colonies, and differed by season ( P < 0.001). Barn swallows ( Hirundo rustica ), red-winged blackbirds ( Agelaius phoeniceus ), horned larks ( Eremophila alpestris ), and chipping sparrows ( Spizella passerina ) were more abundant on noncolony sites than on prairie dog colonies. Burrowing owl ( Athene cunicularia ), Cassin’s sparrow ( Peucaea cassinnii ), and lark bunting ( Calamospiza melanocorys ) abundances were greater on prairie dog colonies. Vegetative alterations made by prairie dogs may not influence bird populations as much in these shortgrass prairies as has been reported in mixed-grass prairies.
Contributions of Renewable Energy Industries to the Local Economy in North Dakota
Authors: Coon Randal C. , Hodur Nancy M. , Bangsund Dean A. , Lim Siew Hoon
Published: April 2015

Energy production in North Dakota is typically associated with fossil fuels, but in the past decade there has been considerable growth in renewable energy, which is comprised of ethanol production, electricity generation from wind turbines, and the manufacture of wind turbine components. Using expenditures data from renewable energy firms, we find that expansion of renewable energy infrastructure between 2002 and 2011 increased retail sales, personal income, employment, and total tax collections. Total economic impact associated with construction expenditures peaked in 2008 and 2009. In 2011 the total economic impact of the operations of renewable energy industries in North Dakota was $1.0 billion, two-thirds of which was contributed by ethanol production.
Contemporary Use of Wild Fruits by the Lakota in South Dakota and Implications for Cultural Identity
Authors: Kant Joanita M. , Larson Gary E. , Burckhard Suzette R. , Berdanier Bruce W. , Meyers Richard T.
Published: April 2015

We present modern-day uses of traditionally used wild fruits among the Lakota on Rosebud Reservation as determined from interviews conducted in 2012. We quantify modern-day uses of wild fruits for food, beverages, tonics, medicines (physical and/or spiritual), and crafts. Use of buffaloberries, buffalo currants, chokecherries, riverbank grapes, plums, rosehips, and other plant parts remain as customs among the Lakota although the knowledge and practice of using wild fruits may be waning. Many interviewees implied that traditional uses of wild fruits could help sustain cultural identity.
Perceptibility of Prairie Songbirds Using Double-Observer Point Counts
Authors: Leston Lionel , Koper Nicola , Rosa Patricia
Published: April 2015

Few studies have evaluated techniques for estimating detectability of prairie songbirds. We conducted dependent double-observer point counts at 52 plots in prairie pastures in southern Alberta, Canada, in 2012, to test for species-specific, group-specific, and observer-specific differences in perceptibility. Although we did not find strong species or observer effects on perceptibility of most species in the study, we found evidence of differences in perceptibility when we pooled prairie songbirds into groups according to singing behaviors. Observers typically perceived only 40% of quiet songbirds singing from the ground (e.g., grasshopper sparrows and horned larks) but observed >89% of louder species singing from perch sites (e.g., Savannah sparrows) or in flight (e.g., Sprague’s pipits). Dependent double-observer methods would result in little increase in accuracy of abundance estimates for most species, but could be useful in studies where quiet species are more abundant or are targets for conservation management.
Governing the Postmortem Procurement of Human Body Material for Research
Authors: Van Assche Kristof , Capitaine Laura , Pennings Guido , Sterckx Sigrid
Published: April 2015

Human body material removed post mortem is a particularly valuable resource for research. Considering the efforts that are currently being made to study the biochemical processes and possible genetic causes that underlie cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, it is likely that this type of research will continue to gain in importance. However, post mortem procurement of human body material for research raises specific ethical concerns, more in particular with regard to the consent of the research participant. In this paper, we attempt to determine which consent regime should govern the post mortem procurement of body material for research. In order to do so, we assess the various arguments that could be put forward in support of a duty to make body material available for research purposes after death. We argue that this duty does in practice not support conscription but is sufficiently strong to defend a policy of presumed rather than explicit consent.
Risks, Benefits, Complications and Harms: Neglected Factors in the Current Debate on Non-Therapeutic Circumcision
Authors: Darby Robert
Published: April 2015

Much of the contemporary debate about the propriety of non-therapeutic circumcision of male infants and boys revolves around the question of risks vs. benefits. With its headline conclusion that the benefits outweigh the risks, the current circumcision policy of the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] (released 2012) is a typical instance of this line of thought. Since the AAP states that it cannot assess the true incidence of complications, however, critics have pointed out that this conclusion is unwarranted. In this paper it is argued that the AAP’s conclusion is untenable not only for empirical reasons related to lack of data, but also for logical and conceptual reasons: the concept of risk employed—risk of surgical complications—is too narrow to be useful in the circumcision debate. Complications are not the only harms of circumcision: the AAP and other parties debating the pros and cons of circumcision should conceptualize their analysis more broadly as risk of harm vs. prospect of benefit, thereby factoring in the value of the foreskin to the individual and the physical and ethical harms of removing it from a non-consenting child.
Applying a Global Justice Lens to Health Systems Research Ethics: An Initial Exploration
Authors: Pratt Bridget , Hyder Adnan A.
Published: April 2015

Recent scholarship has considered what, if anything, rich people owe to poor people to achieve justice in global health and the implications of this for international research. Yet this work has primarily focused on international clinical research. Health systems research is increasingly being performed in low and middle income countries and is essential to reducing global health disparities. This paper provides an initial description of the ethical issues related to priority setting, capacity-building, and the provision of post-study benefits that arise during the conduct of such research. It presents a selection of issues discussed in the health systems research literature and argues that they constitute ethical concerns based on their being inconsistent with a particular theory of global justice (the health capability paradigm). Issues identified include the fact that priority setting for health systems research at the global level is often not driven by national priorities and that capacity-building efforts frequently utilize one-size-fits-all approaches.