This is a dissertation project on medieval Arabic rhetoric and philosophy that focuses on the innovative nature of the knowledge produced while translating and commenting on foreign works of science and philosophy in Abbasid Baghdad. Chapter One challenges colonial attitudes tow…
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The tenth-century Ikhwan Al-S[dotbelow]afa' were a secret society that combined neoplatonic thought with their understanding of religion and reading of scripture. They wrote fifty-two epistles on various branches of the sciences, beginning with mathematics and ending with the oc…
Sufis have long been known for their talk of "love and beauty." While there is much scholarship on love in Sufism, there has been very little scholarly attempt at a systematic analysis of the significance of beauty in Sufi worldview. One of the reasons for this is that while Suf…
This dissertation analyzes the stance the `ulama of the four Sunni madhahib took during the political confrontation between the Ayyubids and the Mamluks in the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk period, 637-676 A.H./A.D. 1240-1277. Struggles for power among members of the Ayyubid fam…
Most scholars of early Qur'an manuscripts have focused on studying calligraphy and have chosen not to attempt a detailed study of the decoration often present throughout the manuscripts. Much of the scholarship centers on dating and localizing early Qur'an manuscripts; there are…
During the period of Mongol occupation, Baghdad, a long established center of learning in the Islamic world, emerged as a site of intense intellectual debate and dialogue between Shi`i and Sunni scholars. Shi`i and Sunni scholars participated extensively in the transmission of k…
The dissertation offers a cross-cultural comparison of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in early Medieval Christianity and Fatima, Muhammad's daughter, in Shi'ite Islam. It focuses on theological treatises, hagiography, and material culture. The dissertation demonstrates that Medieval…
The aim of my research is to understand how canon, tradition, societal norms, and circumstance influence Qur'anic interpretation. I do this by examining clerical exegeses (tafsir , pl. tafasir ) of three key verses in the Qur'an which describe the nature of women and the relatio…
Since its inception in the nineteenth century, the genre of Anglo-Saxon charms has drawn the attention of many scholars and appealed to enthusiasts of magic, paganism, and popular religion. Their Christian nature has been widely acknowledged in recent years, but their position w…
Medieval castle slighting is the phenomenon in which a high-status fortification is demolished in a time of conflict. At its heart are issues about symbolism, the role of castles in medieval society, and the politics of power. Although examples can be found throughout the Middle…
While the benefits of analysing social networks within the wider humanities are becoming more accepted, very little work of this kind has been done in medieval studies. This thesis seeks to begin to fill this lacuna by considering the advantages of examining historical moments t…
This study examines the illustrations that appear at the Office of the Dead in English Books of Hours, and seeks to understand how text and image work together in this thriving culture of commemoration to say something about how the English understood and thought about death in …
Conflict or battlefield archaeology has been steadily gaining traction within British archaeology since the 1990s. Methods of inquiry unique to conflict archaeology, allied to a growing body of theory, have enabled archaeologists to define and reconstruct events of past conflict…
'A treatise of algebra historical and practical' (London 1685) by John Wallis (1616-1703) was the first full length history of algebra. In four hundred pages Wallis explored the development of algebra from its appearances in Classical, Islamic and medieval cultures to the modern…
Artefacts relating to tin smelting from tin mills or 'blowing houses' in Devon and Cornwall, plus material from smelting sites that cover a range of dates from the Bronze Age through to the 19th Century, were examined: these include metallic tin, furnace linings, ore samples and…
"A guide to the history behind the world of Harry Potter? Just in time for the last Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part II). Harry Potter lives in a world that is both magical and historical. Hogwarts pupils ride an old-fashioned steam train to school,…
In the first comprehensive survey of Medieval queenship, Earenfight reveals how queens and empresses were fundamental to monarchies across Europe from 300 CE to the Renaissance. An engaging introduction to the study of queenship which presents key research and source material, a…
An examination of gender, ownership, and memory in the imagery of the prefatory cycle of the Melisende Psalter (Egerton 1139).
To investigate the reception of Classical motifs within the early medieval world, as well as show the multicultural connectivity between peoples, this work of creative fiction explores the tradition of Neoptolemus in the Ninth Century CE. Rather than telling the story from a sin…