The late antique Latin translations of the works of the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus exerted a profound and many-faceted influence on medieval Christian scholarship in the Latin West. Though the ubiquitous nature of the influence and incorporation of these wor…
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This dissertation is the first comprehensive study of the formative but obscure time in Ottoman history known as the Interregnum (1402-1413). The Interregnum was a period of dynastic warfare following the Battle of Ankara, in which the Ottoman Sultan Yildirim Bayezid I was crush…
In fifteenth-century Bohemia religious and political needs intersected in a revolution that affected the Church, the Empire, and all of Europe. The religious reformation started by Jan Hus became a political revolution in 1419 when many Czech nobles decided to deny the Bohemian …
Located in the center of the Mediterranean, with access to both northern and southern shores of the sea as well as routes between east and west, Sicily appears to be an obvious candidate for the position of hub within medieval Mediterranean shipping and travel patterns. As a hub…
After the fall of Rome, how did the work and words of the ancient Greek philosophers make their way, textually and intellectually, into later European thought? There were two primary and obvious paths that this Greek literature could have taken to reach medieval Europe after the…
This dissertation updates current models of cultural encounter, which tend to venerate European agency, by demonstrating that Europe's others co-constituted European representations. I argue that African thought shaped important European discussions and canonical texts, includin…
After the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed in the year 70, the priestly service ceased, thus catalyzing Judaism to redefine sacrifice. Ideas about sacrifice, so bound up with notions of covenant and atonement that had long defined Israelite religion, did not simply disappear from …
Christianity in the late Middle Ages focused largely on a concern for the afterlife and the need for repentance, which was connected to the belief that Christ's Second Coming was near. As a result, late medieval writings expressed a clear concern for the state of one's soul when…
The epic hero of the ancient and medieval world is a problematic character: he simultaneously embodies the bright dream of a protective and courageous aristocrat, and the brutal fact of a violent man with a talent for killing. This dichotomy is often found in the characters of I…
Literary descriptions of Heaven constitute a still undervalued collection needing more systematic study. The authors were faith-driven, richly imaginative, and dynamically engaged with the world they viewed from the perspective of their ultimate goal. This dissertation offers ne…
This dissertation, "Jewish Conversion to Christianity in Medieval Northern Europe Encountered and Imagined, 1000-1300," addresses Jewish perspectives on apostates encountered and apostasy imagined followed by Christian perspectives on conversion imagined and converts encountered…
The Maccabean martyrs were the only group of martyrs acknowledged by both medieval Christians and Jews. While scholars have discussed the Maccabean martyrs in rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, little has been published concerning them in later periods. No work has systema…
Epilepsy in Medieval Islamic History focuses on the perception, etiology and treatment of epilepsy in the work of four medieval Islamic scholars, Ibn Sina, Razi, Ibn Qayyim and S[dotbelow]anawbari, while attempting to place their views in the wider context of a medieval Islamic …
When Islam was half as old it is today, Egypt was swept by mass conversions that irrevocably altered its religious history and demographic composition. In the early 8th/14th century, unprecedented pressures delivered a final blow to the Coptic Christian community's hitherto priv…
During the late medieval period, the Ni`matullahi t[dotbelow]ariqah , founded by Shah Ni`matullah Wali (d.834/1431), became one of the most widespread Sufi orders in Iran. The present study traces that order's evolution during its formative years, from the late 8th /14th century…
Luther's response to the Turkish threat in the sixteenth century shows both continuity and contrast with his predecessors. Unable to obtain a copy of the Qur'an until the end of his life, he was dependent on the writings of others and was especially indebted to the polemical wor…
The study of grammar emerged as Arabic became the language of the Islamic empire. Scholars realized that the language of the Arabian Peninsula had started to change, posing a threat to the understanding and correct pronunciation of the Qur'an. The science of grammar started, acc…
This study examines the relationship between sound and meaning in medieval Arabic linguistic theory, with particular attention given to the work of Ibn Jinni. The historical background of discussions of the relationship between sound and meaning in the Arabic linguistic traditio…
The dissertation is an examination of the image of Islam and the Muslim as constructed in the medieval and early modern literatures. In Chapter I, the dissertation argues that Islam as a phenomenon in the Middle Ages was articulated through Antichrist rhetoric, language and symb…