DOCSLIB.ORG

A.Horn Dissertation (Deposit)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A.Horn Dissertation (Deposit) Presumption and Despair: The figure of Bernard in Middle English imaginative literature Adam Tyler Horn Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2021 © 2021 Adam Tyler Horn All Rights Reserved Abstract Presumption and Despair: The figure of Bernard in Middle English imaginative literature Adam Tyler Horn This dissertation pursues two distinct but parallel projects in relation to the work of Bernard of Clairvaux and Middle English imaginative literature. First, I argue for a Bernardine anagogical lens as a way to better understand the deepest theological commitments and most distinctive formal innovations of certain key Middle English literary texts, especially Piers Plowman and The Canterbury Tales. Second, I outline a more genealogical project, tracing the figure of Bernard as it is explicitly invoked in widely circulated Middle English works including Piers, The Parson’s Tale, and the Prick of Conscience. These two threads connect to suggest that the work of Bernard of Clairvaux can offer a new way to understand the relationship between theological and literary texts in the late Middle Ages. Because Bernard’s influence in the vernacular is as much as matter of style as of content, it requires a more capacious way of theorizing the theological implications and even motivations of literary form. The “figure of Bernard” acts as a cipher for later works to explore their deepest intellectual preoccupations, and makes it possible to trace the way they imagine the anagogical interval between the presence and absence of Christ, the over- and under-estimation of the presence of eternity in time. The Bernardine themes of “presumption” and “despair” serve as a useful shorthand for signaling this theorization, and help me to extend its application beyond texts in which Bernard is explicitly invoked—including to writers, like Chaucer and Thomas Malory, whose work is often assumed to be firmly secular. Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iii Introduction: A Double Glow: Bernardine style and anagogical exegesis ..................................... 1 Chapter 1: Noonday Ambivalence: Re-examining Langland’s Nede in the light of Bernardine theology ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 2: The Two Bernards: Tensions in Bernardine theology and its literary heirs ............... 75 Chapter 3: “Bernard the monk ne saugh nat all”: Chaucerian theology and the Bernardine tradition ....................................................................................................................................... 128 Chapter 4: “In good tyme”: After despair in Malory’s “Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere” .................................................................................................................................. 183 Chapter 5: Memorare .................................................................................................................. 237 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................257 References ................................................................................................................................... 263 i Acknowledgments First I should thank my dissertation committee, and especially my sponsor Eleanor Johnson. Eleanor offered more of her time and energy to this project than I had any right to expect, and made me an incomparably clearer thinker and writer over the course of almost six years of encouragement and supervision. Christopher Baswell has consistently challenged my least thorough impulses, and helped make possible a research trip that fundamentally shaped this dissertation. Patricia Dailey has suggested crucial sources for this project that I would never have got to myself, and challenged me at the start to find deeper scholarly resources for my interests. My fellow student Jeremy Stevens gave me the strength to carry on over lunch at Panda Express. I should also thank Nicolette Zeeman for helping me to begin to understand Thomas Malory, and to read and write about literature much more carefully than I was at first inclined to do. Without her supervision of the MPhil paper that became this dissertation’s fourth chapter, I would have had no idea where I was going, and even less of an idea of how to get there. I would also like to thank Robin Kirkpatrick, who taught me how to read Dante in the most generously personal learning environment I have ever encountered. Dante does not appear much in this dissertation, but the spirit of Robin’s teaching does. Lastly, I have to offer a special thanks to Nicholas Watson, my undergraduate advisor, without whom I would have never thought of attempting such a thing. Nicholas introduced me to Chaucer, Langland, and Julian of Norwich, and sent me to Bernard’s On Loving God to understand them. It is no exaggeration to say that I have spent ten years of my life pursuing these themes. Tempting as it is to conclude with a monastic “perdite vixi,” I do not feel that the time has been wasted, and I am very grateful to have been sent off in the direction of Cîteaux, by way of Canterbury. This work is the product of “sondry folk, by aventure yfalle / In felaweshipe.” ii Dedication for Steve Roberts, who took me to Gethsemani and bought me some books, and for Simonetta d’Italia-Wiener, who stopped for me. iii Not to make sense, inside the keel of sweating ribs, not to make sense but room. —Rowan Williams, “Thomas Merton: summer 1966” But what he knew by nature from eternity he learned by experience in time. (“sed quod natura sciebat ab aeterno, temporali didicit experimento”) —Bernard of Clairvaux, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae iv Introduction A Double Glow Bernardine style and anagogical exegesis It is no less important to recall that a doctrine does not exist only where it is laid out in didactic and scholarly fashion: it is also present in actu where it inspires thought; it can be there in a much more organic and much more powerful way than in some formula whose verbal balance and clarity leave nothing to be desired. —Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis The outstanding examples of the “Cistercian school,” Étienne Gilson observed, were all “stylists”: “Brought up in the school of Cicero and St. Augustine, they have renounced everything save the art of good writing.” This applies most of all to their most famous representative. Gilson recalls that the “profound hesitation” of St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s early years was the question “whether to become a man of letters or to become a saint” (7). Ultimately, Bernard chose both. From the very beginning, when he entered the fledgling Cistercian order at Citeaux with some thirty friends and family members in tow, Bernard was already preaching and converting, learning how best to use language in the service of his new vocation. As his friend William of St. Thierry wrote in the saint’s Vita Prima, at that time Bernard “began to rejoice in the Spirit, for he was now the spiritual father of all those reborn in Christ, his own brothers, and 1 he saw clearly that the hand of the Lord was working with him. From this moment he set himself to assemble whomever he could by the force of words and began to put on the new man” (17). From the pen of William, who enlisted Bernard’s rhetorical skill in multiple theological controversies,1 the germ of this observation shines through in all its sincerity: for William, himself a gifted writer, Bernard is one who works “by the force of words,” and whose capacity to use them is second to none. “From now on,” William says, “when Bernard spoke either publicly or privately, mothers hid their sons from him, wives kept their husbands away from him, and friends fended off their friends from contact with him, because the Holy Spirit put so much power into his speech that hardly any other love could withstand its force” (19). The passion for “good writing” never left Bernard—he was composing his Sermons on the Song of Songs on his deathbed—and it left its mark on all who came into contact with him. Testaments to the power of Bernard’s rhetorical gifts echo down through the Middle Ages. Steven Botterill’s study of Bernard’s impact on Dante’s Divine Comedy, where Bernard appears to complete Dante’s journey through the heavenly spheres, provides a good introduction to the saint’s legacy in the years following his death in 1153: “if there was one factor that linked the disparate perceptions of Bernard in late medieval culture – contemplative, Mariologist, ecclesiastical reformer, theologian of grace – it was the recognition of his uniquely efficacious use of language, especially in his preaching” (41). Thomas Aquinas celebrated Bernard “for the humility of his preaching,” even if he was “reluctant to accept whole-heartedly his authority as a thinker” (30); likewise, for the Franciscan Spiritual Ubertino of Casale, “it is above all the word 1 Bernard’s disputes with Peter Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers were both instigated at William’s urging. G.R. Evans cites
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Critical Analysis of the Roles of Women in the Lais of Marie De France
    University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1976 Critical analysis of the roles of women in the Lais of Marie de France Jeri S. Guthrie The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Guthrie, Jeri S., "Critical analysis of the roles of women in the Lais of Marie de France" (1976). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 1941. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/1941 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ROLES OF WOMEN IN THE LAIS OF MARIE DE FRANCE By Jeri S. Guthrie B.A., University of Montana, 1972 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 1976 Approved by: Chairmah, Board of Exami iradua4J^ School [ Date UMI Number EP35846 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT OissHEH'tfttkffl Pk^islw^ UMI EP35846 Published by ProQuest LLC (2012).
    [Show full text]
  • Accounting in the Thirteenth Century Manuscripts on Estate Management Robert M
    The Accounting Historians Notebook Volume 17 Article 5 Number 1 Spring 1994 1994 Accounting in the thirteenth century manuscripts on estate management Robert M. Kozub Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook Part of the Accounting Commons, and the Taxation Commons Recommended Citation Kozub, Robert M. (1994) "Accounting in the thirteenth century manuscripts on estate management," The Accounting Historians Notebook: Vol. 17 : No. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol17/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Archival Digital Accounting Collection at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Accounting Historians Notebook by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Kozub: Accounting in the thirteenth century manuscripts on estate management ACCOUNTING IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY MANUSCRIPTS ON ESTATE MANAGEMENT by Robert M. Kozub University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee References to the accounting system Walter of Henley used for manors are contained in three early Due to a boom in farming during the thir­ manuscripts on estate management. These teenth century, a shortage of manorial clerk early manuscripts dealt with husbandry, and auditors developed. To alleviate this that is, the wise use of resources, and were shortage, formal accounting instruction addressed to the lords of the estate. Each began to be taught at Oxford University manuscript provided practical hints intend­ (Chatfield, 1974, p.28). An instructor at ed to aid individuals in the management of Oxford University during this period, their business affairs. Although the institu­ Walter of Henley, wrote a treatise on hus­ tions and practices referred to in these man­ bandry (Circa 1221) which contained a sec­ uscripts have long since passed away, these tion on manorial accounting (Power, 1934, treatises provide a fairly complete picture of p.
    [Show full text]
  • Road Stories
    University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2015 Road Stories Louis Mindar University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Mindar, Louis, "Road Stories" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 1288. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1288 ROAD STORIES by LOUIS MINDAR III B.S. Western Illinois University, 1983 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2015 © 2015 Louis Mindar III ii ABSTRACT Road Stories is a collection of three novellas that explore the pull, allure, sanctuary, serendipity, and adventure of life on the open road. The novellas examine how for some, the road holds the promise of a new day, an improved life, a better opportunity, or a deeper love; while for others, it is nothing more than an assortment of jumbled blue lines on a map. In Tierra del Fuego, a man takes to the road to figure out how to deal with the grief and sense of betrayal he feels following the death of his wife.
    [Show full text]
  • Protestant and Catholic Cooperation in Early Modern England Lisa Clark Diller Southern Adventist University, [email protected]
    Southern Adventist University KnowledgeExchange@Southern Faculty Works History and Political Studies Department 2008 Protestant and Catholic Cooperation in Early Modern England Lisa Clark Diller Southern Adventist University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/facworks_hist Part of the European History Commons, and the History of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Diller, Lisa Clark, "Protestant and Catholic Cooperation in Early Modern England" (2008). Faculty Works. 10. https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/facworks_hist/10 This Conference Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the History and Political Studies Department at KnowledgeExchange@Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of KnowledgeExchange@Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Protestant and Catholic Cooperation in Early Modern England The reign of James II gave English Catholics a chance to interact much more intentionally with their Protestant fellow citizens. The rich debate and mutual analysis that ensued with James’s lifting of the censorship of Catholic printing and penal laws changed assumptions, terminology, and expectations regarding religious and civil practices. A more comprehensive articulation of what should be expected of citizens was the result of these debates and English political life after 1689 provided a wider variety of possibilities for trans- denominational cooperation in social and political enterprises. The continuing importance of anti-Catholicism in the attitudes of English Protestants has been emphasized by historians from John Miller to Tim Harris.123456 Without denying this, I argue that the content and quality of this anti-Catholicism was changing and that too great a focus on the mutual antagonism undermines the significant elements of interaction, cooperation and influence.
    [Show full text]
  • Writing About the Ymage in Fifteenth-Century England*
    Writing about the ymage in fifteenth-century England* Marjorie Munsterberg Considerable scholarly attention has been given to the ways in which writing about art developed in Renaissance Italy. Michael Baxandall and Robert Williams especially have studied how still-familiar methods of visual description and analysis were created from classical texts as well as contemporary studio talk. This new language spread rapidly through Europe and, over the course of the sixteenth century, overwhelmed every other approach to the visual arts. By the start of the seventeenth century, it had become the only acceptable source of serious visual analysis, a position it still holds in much of art history.1 I would like to examine an earlier English tradition in which both instructions for how to look at visual objects and historical accounts of viewers looking describe something very different. Beginning in the late fourteenth century and continuing through the fifteenth century, Lollard and other reform movements made the use of religious images a * Translations of the Middle English texts are available as an appendix in pdf. Click here. All websites were accessed on 9 December 2019. The amount of scholarly literature about fifteenth-century English religious writings that has been published in the past few decades is staggering. Like others who write about this topic, I am deeply indebted to the pioneering scholarship of the late Margaret Aston as well as that of Anne Hudson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval English, University of Oxford, and Fiona Somerset, Professor of English, University of Connecticut at Storrs. Professor Daniel Sheerin, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, was extraordinarily generous in response to my inquiries about the history of analysing painting in terms of line and colour.
    [Show full text]
  • THE REFORMATION in LEICESTER and LEICESTERSHIRE, C.1480–1590 Eleanor Hall
    THE REFORMATION IN LEICESTER AND LEICESTERSHIRE, c.1480–1590 Eleanor Hall Since its arrival in England, never did Christianity undergo such a transformation as that of the Reformation. By the end of the sixteenth century the official presence of Catholicism had almost entirely disappeared in favour of Protestantism, the permanent establishment of which is still the institutional state religion. This transformation, instigated and imposed on the population by a political elite, had a massive impact on the lives of those who endured it. In fact, the progression of these religious developments depended on the compliance of the English people, which in some regions was often absent. Indeed, consideration must be given to the impact of the Reformation on these localities and social groups, in which conservatism and nostalgia for the traditional faith remained strong. In spite of this, the gradual acceptance of Protestantism by the majority over time allowed its imposition and the permanent establishment of the Church of England. Leicestershire is a county in which significant changes took place. This paper examines these changes and their impact on, and gradual acceptance by, the various religious orders, secular clergy, and the laity in the town and county. Important time and geographical comparisons will be drawn in consideration of the overall impact of the Reformation, and the extent to which both clergy and laity conformed to the religious changes imposed on them, and managed to retain their religious devotion in the process. INTRODUCTION The English Reformation is one of the periods in history that attracts a high level of interest and debate.
    [Show full text]
  • “May the Divine Will Always Be Blessed!” Newsletter No
    The Pious Universal Union for the Children of the Divine Will Official Newsletter for “The Pious Universal Union for Children of the Divine Will –USA” Come Supreme Will, down to reign in Your Kingdom on earth and in our hearts! ROGATE! FIAT ! “May the Divine Will always be blessed!” Newsletter No. 130 – March 4 A.D. 2013 “Now I die more content, because the Divine Volition consoled me more than usual with your presence in these lasts instants of my life. Now I see a long, beautiful and wide Road, illuminated by infinite and shining Suns... Oh, yes, I recognize them! They are the Suns of my acts done in the Divine Will. This is the road which I now must follow. It is the way prepared for me by the Divine Volition, it is the road of my triumph, it is the road of my glory, to connect me in the immense happiness of the Divine Will. It is my road, it is the road which I will reserve for you, dear Father; it is the road which I will reserve for all those souls who will want to live in the Divine Will.” 1 The Holy Death of Luisa Piccarreta By Padre Bernardino Bucci At the news of Luisa’s death which occurred on March 4 A.D. 1947, it seemed that the people of Corato paused to live a unique and extraordinary event. Their Luisa, their Saint, was no more. And like a river in full spate they poured into Luisa’s house to look at her and express their affection to her, for so many years esteemed and beloved by all.
    [Show full text]
  • Godność Człowieka I Dobro Wspólne W Papieskim Nauczaniu Społecznym
    Rozdział III Godność człowieka i dobro wspólne w nauczaniu papieskim w latach 1878−1958 1. Leon XIII i fundamenty papieskiego nauczania o godności człowieka i dobru wspólnym Nikomu nie wolno naruszać bezkarnie tej godności człowie- ka, którą sam Bóg z wielka czcią rozporządza899. Cel bowiem wytknięty państwu dotyczy wszystkich oby- wateli, bo jest nim dobro powszechne, w którym uczestni- czyć mają prawo wszyscy razem i każdy z osobna, w części należnej900. Uczestnicy współczesnego dyskursu politycznego w poszukiwaniu aksjologicznych fun- damentów dla ustawodawstwa krajowego czy ponadnarodowego odwołują się do takich kategorii, jak: wolność, równość, prawa człowieka. Do tych fundamentalnych idei zaliczyć należy również dignitas humana i bonum commune901. Wydaje się poza dyskusją, że wielką rolę w przetrwaniu i rozwoju tych idei odegrała katolicka nauka społeczna, co uzasadnia poddanie analizie poglądów w tej materii twórcy papieskiego nauczania społecznego Le- ona XIII. Wybrany 20 lutego 1878 r. na papieża arcybiskup Perugii, kardynał Vincenzo Gioacchi- no Aloiso Pecci (1810−1903) przybrał imię Leona XIII. Nowy papież rozbudził w środowi- skach katolickich, zwłaszcza w kręgach zajmujących się problemami społecznymi, wielkie nadzieje na zmiany, które byłyby w stanie dostosować Kościół katolicki do istniejących 899 Rerum novarum Jego Świątobliwości Leona, z opatrzności Bożej papieża XIII, encyklika o robot- nikach z 15 maja 1891 r. Osobne odbicie z „Notyfi kacyj” Kuryi Książęco-Biskupiej w Krakowie, nr VII i VIII z roku 1891, Kraków 1891, s. 27. 900 Ibidem, s. 33. 901 Szerzej na ten temat por. M. Sadowski, Godność człowieka – aksjologiczna podstawa państwa i prawa, [w:] Studia Erasmiana Wratislaviensia − Wrocławskie Studia Erazmiańskie, Zeszyt Naukowy Studentów, Doktorantów i Pracowników Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Wrocław 2007, s.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion in England and Wales 2011
    Religion in England and Wales 2011 Key points Despite falling numbers Christianity remains the largest religion in England and Wales in 2011. Muslims are the next biggest religious group and have grown in the last decade. Meanwhile the proportion of the population who reported they have no religion has now reached a quarter of the population. • In the 2011 Census, Christianity was the largest religion, with 33.2 million people (59.3 per cent of the population). The second largest religious group were Muslims with 2.7 million people (4.8 per cent of the population). • 14.1 million people, around a quarter of the population in England and Wales, reported they have no religion in 2011. • The religion question was the only voluntary question on the 2011 census and 7.2 per cent of people did not answer the question. • Between 2001 and 2011 there has been a decrease in people who identify as Christian (from 71.7 per cent to 59.3 per cent) and an increase in those reporting no religion (from 14.8 per cent to 25.1 per cent). There were increases in the other main religious group categories, with the number of Muslims increasing the most (from 3.0 per cent to 4.8 per cent). • In 2011, London was the most diverse region with the highest proportion of people identifying themselves as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Jewish. The North East and North West had the highest proportion of Christians and Wales had the highest proportion of people reporting no religion. • Knowsley was the local authority with the highest proportion of people reporting to be Christians at 80.9 per cent and Tower Hamlets had the highest proportion of Muslims at 34.5 per cent (over 7 times the England and Wales figure).
    [Show full text]
  • Religious Books -The Right One (Autosaved)
    Title Author Subject Aging Gracefully: The Keys to Holier, Happier Golden Years Dymski, J. Daniel Aging Don't Call Me Old-I'm Just Awakening!: Spiritual Encouragement for Later Life Sinetar, Marsha Aging Good News Bible: Catholic Study Edition: copy 1 Thomas Nelson Bible Good News Bible: Catholic Study Edition: copy 2 Thomas Nelson Bible The American Bible Inside the Mysteries of the Bible Society Bible La Biblia San Pablo Bible New American Bible: St. Joseph Catholic Book Publishing Edition Co. Bible Fireside Catholic The Catholic Answer Bible: NAB Publishing Bible The Catholic Study Bible Oxford University Press Bible The Collegeville Bible Handbook The Liturgical Press Bible The Complete Bible Handbook: An Illustrated Companion Bowker, John Bible The New American Bible: Catholic Study Edition Catholic Bible Press Bible The New Testament of the New American Bible: Audio Cassette Hosanna Bible The Oxford Annotated Bible with the May, Herbert G. and Apocrypha Bruce M. Metzger Bible Campus Life The Way: Catholic Edition Publications Bible Dorothy Day: A Biography Miller, William D. Biography Even Unto Death: Wisdom from Modern Martyrs Kun, Jeanne Biography Heaven is for Real Burpo, Todd Biography John Paul II Giansanti, Gianni Biography Men in the Bible: The Good the Bad & the Ugly O'Grady, John F. Biography Mother Angelica Arroyo, Raymond Biography Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words: Conversations with Jorge Ambrogetti, Francesca Bergoglio and Sergio Rubin Biography Responses to 101 Questions About Jesus Cook, Michael L., S.J. Biography Saintly Deacons Cummings, Owen F. Biography Sinner Rulli, Lino Biography Strength of a Woman: Forgotten Heroines of the Bible LeBlanc, Amy Biography Teresa of Calcutta: A Pencil in God's Hand Zambonini, Franca Biography The Bible: 50 Most Important People Time Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nationality of Men-At-Arms Serving in English Armies In
    The Nationality Of Men-at-Arms se rving in English Armies in Normandy and the pays de conquete, 1415-1450: A Preliminary Survey Anne Curry University of Reading This article is based on a computer.-assisted study of muster rolls of the armies with which Henry V and Henry VI invaded and occupied Northern France in the first half of the fifteenth century. At the time of writing, the database contains 50,000 entries derived from almost all the rolls known to survive, but is restricted to those described therein as either mounted or foot men-at-arms. I Men-at-arms constituted about 25% of the total number of military effectives. with archers making up the remainder. Evidence from the contrerol/es of English garrisons in Normandy suggests that there was very little interchange of personnel between the archers and the men-at-arms. Even so, the conclusions reached in this article must be regarded as limited (in that they are specific to the men-at-arms) and tentative (in that the database and research is not yet complete). It is hoped, however, that they will provide some useful preliminary observations re lating to the nationality of those serving in English royal armies in this period. The surviving documentation facilitates investigation of three aspects. First, we can identify government policy towards the service of soldiers of non-English origin, and the consequent attempts to record nationality on the muster rolls. Secondly, we can note the nat.ionalities so recorded, and comment on the patterns of military service of foreign troops in English pay.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion and Geography
    Park, C. (2004) Religion and geography. Chapter 17 in Hinnells, J. (ed) Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. London: Routledge RELIGION AND GEOGRAPHY Chris Park Lancaster University INTRODUCTION At first sight religion and geography have little in common with one another. Most people interested in the study of religion have little interest in the study of geography, and vice versa. So why include this chapter? The main reason is that some of the many interesting questions about how religion develops, spreads and impacts on people's lives are rooted in geographical factors (what happens where), and they can be studied from a geographical perspective. That few geographers have seized this challenge is puzzling, but it should not detract us from exploring some of the important themes. The central focus of this chapter is on space, place and location - where things happen, and why they happen there. The choice of what material to include and what to leave out, given the space available, is not an easy one. It has been guided mainly by the decision to illustrate the types of studies geographers have engaged in, particularly those which look at spatial patterns and distributions of religion, and at how these change through time. The real value of most geographical studies of religion in is describing spatial patterns, partly because these are often interesting in their own right but also because patterns often suggest processes and causes. Definitions It is important, at the outset, to try and define the two main terms we are using - geography and religion. What do we mean by 'geography'? Many different definitions have been offered in the past, but it will suit our purpose here to simply define geography as "the study of space and place, and of movements between places".
    [Show full text]