School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemInternal crusading in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries : case studies of the Albigensian Crusade and the Italian Crusades of Pope John XXII(University of Melbourne, 2007)This thesis examines the significance of papal participation in several crusades in western Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Paying particular attention to the Albigensian Crusade and the Italian Crusades of John XXII, it argues that, from the thirteenth century, emerging claims of papal sovereignty coupled with a large collection of hierocratic treatises contributed to a juridical redefinition of the crusade that emphasised papal authority as the essential element of a crusade. This thesis argues that this juridical redefinition in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was attributable to the Holy War origins of the crusade. Specifically, Christian Holy War, as conceived by St Augustine of Hippo, was orientated around the need to eradicate spiritual �fifth columns� amongst the faithful. This internal orientation left Christendom unprepared and lacking the necessary conceptual tools to formulate a coherent theory of Holy War against external pagan aggression. Consequently, at its inception late in the eleventh century, the crusade was a legal and ideological aberration, which remained a topic of debate for more than a century after the First Crusade. This thesis also suggests that in terms of both practical and legal considerations, the crusade received greater form and definition when it was employed in matters more reminiscent of Augustine�s preoccupation with heretics and schismatics. During the Albigensian war, the theory of the crusade was refined to emphasise its role as a function of papal authority. As the nature of this authority was re-examined and augmented in the years following the Albigensian Crusade, so too was the crusade itself redefined. The thesis concludes by demonstrating that, with the Church conditioned to associate heresy with physical and political attacks upon ecclesiastics by the Hohenstaufen and Italian Ghibellines, the Pope�s fullness of power gradually ceased to be the means of crusading practices, and became instead the crusade s ultimate end. As the crusade moved closer to Rome, so its motives came closer to the papal cause.
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ItemThe Australian girl in an Americanised world : Australian femininity during the 1980s(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemSomething old, something new, : the role and function of the small, single-focus museum in the world of infotainment(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemThe mirrored lens : the government as enemy in Hollywood film : 1989-2001(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableTextile production in prehistoric Anatolia : a study of three early bronze age sites(University of Melbourne, 2005)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableResearch on the function of Gallo-Roman theatres(University of Melbourne, 2003)
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ItemDefining epiphany in the Homeric hymns(University of Melbourne, 2002)
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ItemMos maiorum in Tacitus(University of Melbourne, 2002)
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ItemThe development of irony in England circa 1470-1530( 2007)Irony is the art of expressing something by saying the opposite. Although there are many studies of irony in English literature, most either do not look at the concept of irony historically or begin only with the mid- to late sixteenth century. In the medieval and early modern period, its most common definitions were blame by praise, sophism, Socratic false modesty and mockery. This thesis examines the evolution of English irony, historicizing modern studies of ironic literature and tracing the influence of ancient ideas. In the neglected period just before More and Erasmus, irony was applied to the central contemporary concern of reconciling eloquence and wisdom. This thesis locates irony in the context of rhetoric’s relationship to philosophy in England, analysing the irony indifferent texts and relating it to the intellectual context in which the texts appeared to discover irony’s contemporary purpose in each. I argue that because of its connection to both rhetoric and philosophy, irony was intimately connected with contemporary concerns throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Plato associated irony with Sophistry, as a form of eloquence designed to disguise ignorance and confound thought. Socrates, however, was admired for using irony as a philosophical technique. Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian focused on irony’s effects, making it a more prestigious form of humour. St Augustine’s suggestion that knowledge of irony was necessary to interpret the hidden meanings of scripture further legitimized it as an institution of oratory. In 4fteenth-century England, allegory and the ‘wise fool’ were used to articulate complex or dangerous ideas. While Socratic false modesty was still distrusted, ‘grammatical’ irony could be used to reprove or teach. Printing and translations into the vernacular facilitated the reform of grammar and rhetoric. The ‘new rhetorics’ of the 1470s-1510s followed Augustine's notion of irony as something that by presenting the reader with contradictory examples could teach judgement (prudentia) and analysis. Irony became established as an instrument of social reform in allegory and grammar. In the early sixteenth century, the new rhetorics became central to ‘grammarians’ wars over the pedagogical rivalry between philosophy and rhetoric. Published epigrams and letters reflected classical understandings of irony as blame by praise, and revived classical mistrust of irony as ‘Sophistical’ point scoring. In this setting, More and Erasmus used the ironic forms of blame by praise in the Praise of Folly and satirical allegory in Utopia. After the mid-sixteenth century, irony was developed separately, in literature as sophisticated mockery, in philosophy as Socratic detachment. Ironic humour became more favoured and irony’s potential in philosophy was recognised—but the notion of philosophy and rhetoric as separate disciplines remained, as did the problem of irony as dissimulation. Grounded in a sense of its own past and constantly applied to contemporary problems, irony is a topic that deserves the attention of historians. From the 1470s to the 1530s,inherited understandings of irony as situated between rhetoric and philosophy were used in the central problem of reconciling eloquence and wisdom.