Theses/Dissertations - History
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Browsing Theses/Dissertations - History by Author "Barr, Beth Allison."
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Item An examination of English Catholic preaching under Queen Mary I, 1553-1558.(2020-08-03) Wilson, Eric Joseph, 1996-; Barr, Beth Allison.An examination of English printed sermons during the reign of Queen Mary I, showing their similarities to other Catholic Reformation sermons and demonstrating their place in the evolution of English homiletics.Item An examination of women’s piety as depicted in medieval and early modern stained glass.(2016-07-29) Henley, Annelise A., 1992-; Barr, Beth Allison.This thesis explores the impact of gender and religious piety on expressions of women’s agency in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. Chapter One introduces Oxfordshire stained glass as the area of inquiry, with the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) database serving as the primary source reference. Both the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York and the British Academy collaborate on this database. The next three chapters investigate portrayals of donors, biblical figures, and non-biblical figures. Each chapter demonstrates that depictions of women and men generally remain uniform across time. That said, the chapters also show that depictions of women changed in small ways that images of men did not. Subtle changes reveal that gender forced Late Medieval and Early Modern women to be creative with their religious expressions, while piety provided women an internalized outlet to express their agency within the church.Item Possession, witchcraft, and the suffocation of the mother : Edward Jorden's effects on women's spiritual agency in early modern England.(2013-09-24) Clark, Meghan M., 1989-; Barr, Beth Allison.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis argues that Edward Jorden’s 1603 treatise A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother emphasized the physical weakness that resulted from women’s unstable reproductive systems and was crucial to the Protestant desacralization of women’s bodies and subsequent decrease of women’s spiritual agency. The first body chapter examines possession through four case studies that compare treatment of men’s and women’s bodies in Puritan possessions. The second chapter provides a close analysis of Jorden’s text in the context of women’s bodies. The third chapter analyzes witchcraft through a case study of the East Anglia trials of 1644-1645. The conclusion reiterates Jorden’s role in redefining the relationship between women’s bodies and spiritual agency in early modern England.Item Precarity and pastoral care : nuns and bishops in the fifteenth-century diocese of Lincoln.(August 2022) Marvel, Elizabeth Eager, 1983-; Barr, Beth Allison.In the medieval past and in the modern present, English nuns have not received the attention to pastoral care befitting their position as the brides of Christ. In late medieval England, this was due to complications of gendered care. In modern scholarship, this is due to a paucity of sources. This dissertation helps remedy the latter problem of source scarcity in order to understand the former problem of gendered care. By using episcopal registers and the visitation records contained therein, this dissertation argues that medieval English bishops had a complex relationship with women religious, involving not only conflict and hostility but also cooperation and care. Modern scholarship has focused on the resistance narrative and neglected the narrative of care. This dissertation shows that both aspects are necessary to fully understand the complex dynamics of pastoral care. The second chapter provides a close reading of a letter regarding an attack on the nuns of Rothwell priory, analyzing the surprising compassion and advocacy of Bishop Richard Fleming. The third chapter considers the gendered dynamics of the vow of chastity, arguing that concerns about reputation were different for male religious than for female religious and this impacted women’s pastoral care. The fourth chapter examines female monastic houses and the vow of poverty, arguing that bishops distinguished between the problems faced by wealthy houses and those faced by poorer houses in their provision of pastoral care. The fifth chapter describes the dynamics in individual houses, arguing that the bishops cared for superiors as distinct from their subordinates in light of the vow of obedience. Taken together, these chapters reveal that 15th-century bishops of Lincoln adapted pastoral care to the specific needs of women religious. However, their care also reinforced gendered ideology and inequities that did little to alleviate the precarity of medieval English nuns.Item "Satan Danced in the Person of the Damsel" : dance, sacrilege, and gender, 1280-1640.(2018-03-22) Miller, Lynneth Jean, 1990-; Barr, Beth Allison.In the twelfth century, the dance of Salome was used to represent the true church, and preachers called both men and women to “dance to God.” By the fourteenth century, however, Salome came to represent a sexualized and demon-possessed figure, and by the seventeenth century, she was the ultimate exemplar of why no one, especially not a woman, should dance. How did such a drastic shift come about? When and why did Satan begin to dance specifically and solely in the person of the damsel? This dissertation answers these questions by utilizing dance as a framework for exploring the relationship between religion and women in the late medieval and early modern eras. It explores the implications of the shift from presenting dance as a gender-neutral act with potential to be either sacred or sinful to a gendered act, particularly transgressive when gendered female. Established scholarly narratives regard views of dance as transgressive as part of the reforms of the sixteenth century or as a static, intrinsic feature of Western Christianity. Adopting dance as a framework for a study that applies Judith Bennet's longue durée approach to gender history reveals that the social and theological breaks separating the medieval church from the early modern church are not as significant as some scholars contend. Rather, it was the theological and ideological shifts of the medieval period, not of the Reformation, that defined dance as gendered and transgressive, which in turn ultimately helped determine the status of women in the church.Item "Sed rudibus et indoctis" : women, orthodoxy, and the Rosebery Rolle Manuscript.(2012-11-29) Gross, Sarah Elizabeth.; Barr, Beth Allison.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis discusses one manuscript of Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole. It asserts that Rolle’s Prose Psalter was compiled specifically for a woman’s private devotion and thus sheds light on both the authors and the readers of the growing devotional movement in late medieval England. Furthermore, by contextualizing Rolle’s work within this devotional movement, as well as by examining the themes and reception history of his texts, this study argues that Rolle was not a precursor to the Lollard movement. He was, instead, an orthodox product of the political and theological situation of the period. Finally, because the passage of verse at the end of the Roseberry Rolle Manuscript Psalter has never been seen before, this thesis provides a translation of the text, an analysis of the text, and ends by raising several questions that deserve further study.Item "She should have more if she were ruled and guided by them" : Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe, female agency in late medieval England.(2012-08-08) Oliver, Laura Christine.; Barr, Beth Allison.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis argues that while patriarchy was certainly present in England during the late medieval period, women of the middle and upper classes were able to exercise agency to a certain degree through using both the patriarchal bargain and an economy of makeshifts. While the methods used by women differed due to the resources available to them, the agency afforded women by the patriarchal bargain and economy of makeshifts was not limited to the aristocracy. Using Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe as cases studies, this thesis examines how these women exercised at least a limited form of agency. Additionally, this thesis examines whether ordinary women have access to the same agency as elite women. Although both were exceptional women during this period, they still serve as ideal case studies because of the sources available about them and their status as role models among their contemporaries.Item Women on the move : representations of female pilgrims in medieval England and Ethiopia.(2018-04-17) Redhair, Anna J., 1994-; Barr, Beth Allison.The most recognizable examples of female pilgrimage from medieval literature follow the trope of a vain and lustful woman whose travel is dangerous. This thesis examines the formation of this trope. The church did not always view women’s pilgrimage as problematic, and early medieval English representations were unconcerned with gender. As virginity became increasingly important, gender became increasingly significant for representations of pilgrims. Late medieval English sermons omitted representations of female pilgrims or portrayed them negatively, except in the case of mothers. Motherhood tempered the restrictions women faced as gender became more central in the West. It also provides a point of continuity with Christianity in Ethiopia. Motherhood empowered women in both England and Ethiopia, but Ethiopian sources placed less emphasis on gender and depicted women in a wider variety of roles. This demonstrates the need for scholarship to broaden its conception of medieval Christianity beyond the West.