SPINNING EVE: CREATING CHRISTIAN WOMAN

By the late medieval period, Eve was frequently presented as a spinner of thread, both in literature and images.  However, although the nakedness of both Adam and Eve is mentioned in the Bible, there is no mention of the need to create clothing.  In fact, God is said to have dressed them both in animal skins.  Generally, images of women spinning in the medieval period are interpreted as reflecting on women's industriousness and virtue, aspects that seem dubious in the case of Eve.  This paper will present and discuss representations of spinners from the classical period and into early medieval times to suggest that the use of spinning was also a way of representing a woman's biological role as child bearer, an inheritance from Greco-Roman, but not Judaeo-Christian culture.

TRANSITION AND TRADITION: PILGRIM FLASKS IN LATE ANTIQUITY

This paper considers the ritual and religious use of pottery in late antique Asia Minor, focusing on the archaeological context of sixth-century pilgrim flasks.  From the fifth century CE, miniature clay flasks were used to contain sacred substances (sanctified oil, water or earth) collected by pilgrims from saint shrines in the east.  Pilgrim flasks were made at several sites including the shrine of St Menas in northern Egypt and the shrine of St John the Evangelist near Ephesus.  Ampullae from Asia Minor have a characteristic oval shape and they feature a variety of designs including religious emblems and images of saints.  They were made from several types of clay, which indicates that they were produced at more than one location.  Ampullae have been excavated in houses and shop buildings and also in graves and shrines, apparently deposited as votive offerings.  A surprising feature of the flasks found in religious settings is that they are all from pagan shrines and sanctuaries.  Sixth-century pilgrim flasks seem to be explicitly Christian objects, so how can their presence in pagan places of worship be explained?

THE BIG PICTURE: COLLOCATIONS OF ACTION AND BACKGROUND SCENES IN BEOWULF AND ANDREAS

In poems of the reiterative, appositive style of the Old English Beowulf and Andreas, the juxtaposition of strikingly different scenes in successive paratactic clauses is bound to stand out.  Both poems contain several of these close collocations of remarkably different visual images, often linked through alliteration in one verse line.  In this paper I will look at instances where scenes of action on the level of the characters are collocated with larger background tableaux.  I argue that the poets of Beowulf and Andreas exploit this narrative technique - which will be defined in terms of syntax and sense - to confirm or to challenge each protagonist's desires and feelings towards their place in the world.  The effect of this technique in Andreas is particularly well highlighted when the poem is compared with its closest Latin analogue.  I hope to demonstrate the possibilities which the Anglo-Saxon verse form can bring to the adaptation of the saint's Life, where the original narrative is enriched through the poetic structure of the Old English alliterative half-line.

THE DEATH MOTIF AS A SITE OF CULTURAL MEMORY IN OLD ENGLISH AND ICELANDIC LITERATURE

My paper will examine death, a prevalent motif in Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic literature, as a site of cultural memory in these medieval writings.  The presence and treatment of the death motif in this literature raises many interesting questions, which could potentially provide insights into the significance of conversion on narrative depictions of early Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon cultural history.  For instance, how and why do characters meet premature or violent deaths in these works?  Is there any justification for the killings that occur in the stories?  How do the characters react to their impending dooms?  A tidy way of examining the death motif will be to group the various depictions of death under 'Heroic' and 'Unheroic' headings, and to explore what characteristics or narrative patterns seem to qualify a death as 'heroic' or 'unheroic'.  In the case of the Icelandic family sagas, which are post-conversion narratives that retrospectively depict the religious conversion of the Icelandic people, we cannot help but realise that acts of 'heroism' in the face of death will undoubtedly be framed by Christian principles.  One example I will explore in this paper is death by burning in the Icelandic sagas.  Characters are repeatedly trapped and burned in their own homes in these sagas; I will suggest that the motivation for committing (and the reaction to) these deaths varies noticeably depending on whether the burning occurs pre- or post-conversion in the narrative.  By extension, the literary treatment of these burning-deaths can possibly give modern readers some insight into the twelfth and thirteenth century cultural memory of conversion in Iceland.

UNCER GIEDD GEADOR: THE PURPOSE OF AMBIGUITY IN WULF AND EADWACER

160 years of scholarship generated by the poem now widely known as Wulf and Eadwacer has produced a corpus of work that is marked by a divergence of individual interpretations and an emphasis on exegesis through translation.  Many times the question has been raised as to how the ambiguities inherent in the poem might best be resolved so that a definitive translation can be constructed.  What must be understood, however, is that the poem cannot be translated because the ambiguities so apparently frustrating to modern scholars are not products of incomplete philology nor lack of context; they are deliberate creations of a subtle poet (or poets) who meant their work to be understood on a number of levels simultaneously and who, through the use of these multi-faceted ambiguities, created a range of corollary interpretations that both modify and enhance our understanding of the mental state of the poem's characters.

BLACK AND WHITE:  DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SCANDINAVIANS AND THE IRISH IN THE VIKING AGE

With increasing contact between Scandinavians and the Irish, each side had to develop terminology for identifying the other and distinguishing themselves.  This paper will explore the ways in which both groups invoked concepts of light and darkness as descriptors.  A simple us/them, black/white distinction is not apparent.  The Irish absented themselves from a light/dark continuum, and identified different groups of vikings as white and black foreigners (finngall and dubhgall), with apparently a more pejorative usage of finngall.  Scandinavians however utilised a range of negative (svartr: black; kol: coal; ljótr: ugly) and positive (hvítr: white; fagr: fair; fríðr: beautiful) terms, derived mainly from physical characteristics, and included themselves in their classification system.

THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES AS TELEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT: TEACHING AND THINKING THE IDEA OF THE EARLY MEDIEVAL

This paper addresses some pedagogical issues around the idea of the 'early medieval'.  What separates the early Middle Ages from the later period, and why do we make distinctions between periods of medieval history?  Why do historians cling to Rodulf Glaber's 'dawn of a new era' paradigm in establishing a fundamental - even epistemic - shift around the year 1000?  How do we teach students about the idea of 'early' medieval history?  In addressing these questions, I will consider the teleologies at work in the construction of the medieval past(s) and their innate reliance on concepts of conquest, rather than continuity.

THE CRUCIFIXION AND THE WORLD IN THE DROGO SACRAMENTARY
'Et ego si exaltatus fuero a terra omnia traham ad me ipsa':  Re-examining a Carolingian crucifixion minature.

The Crucifixion image contained in the Drogo Sacramentary (c 844-55) is a beautiful example of a Carolingian portrayal of the crucifixion.  In the image, one particularly ambiguous figure sits to Christ's left at the foot of the cross.  Who is he?   This paper proposes new readings of both the ambiguous figure and subsequently the entire image by examining them in relation to literary contexts (John's Gospel and its interpretation by St. Augustine and Hrabanus Maurus), liturgical and artistic manuscript contexts (Palm Sunday, images for Holy Week), and historical context (Carolingian imperial iconography).  In undertaking this analysis, the reading explores some of the possibilities of interpretation created by the complex layering of meaning in the art and theology of this period.

THE GENESIS PAGE OF THE ALCUIN BIBLE

This paper examines the Genesis page of the Alcuin or Bamberg Bible (Staatsbibliothek Bamberg Hs 15), probably made between 834 and 837 by the school of the abbey of St Martin in Tours, comparing it in terms of its layout and visual repertoire with the Genesis pages of two other great Carolingian bibles of the Tours school, the Moutier-Grandval Bible (London, British Library, Cod. Add. Ms. 10546), and the First Bible of Charles the Bald or Vivian Bible (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Cod. Lat 1).  The comparison, using a series of tracings, shows a change in the visual repertoire: the Alcuin figures and related motifs and the trees - all of which are of a very particular style - were not used in the Moutier-Grandval and Vivian Genesis pages. The figures, while similar in gestures and position, were drawn quite differently, and trees belong to another artistic tradition. The comparison also indicates that particularly sophisticated design skills were employed in the Alcuin Genesis, especially in the layout, and that those skills were not as sophisticated in the Genesis pages of the other Tours Bibles. 

A WORTHY WARRIOR:  AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF HECTOR'S PORTRAIT IN MEDIEVAL TROJAN WAR EPICS

During the Middle Ages, the stories of Homer regarding the Trojan War were largely rejected by most for he placed gods among mortals and wrote after the fact.  Rather than believing the Ancient Greek classics the Iliad and the Odyssey, people turned towards Dares of Phrygia and Dictys of Crete, for both writers alleged to be eyewitnesses of the actual event.  To substantiate their claim, these forgeries provided details that only an actual observer could supply.  Within Dares' account, for example, the author included a catalogue of the important figures who took part in the events surrounding the war.  With each name, he supplied a brief physical description, thus giving the reader an opportunity to imagine within his/her mind a portrayal of this legendary figure.  While these Trojan War epics date back respectively to the fourth and sixth century of the Common Era, their accounts lived on for centuries afterward with later writers translating and embellishing the initial material.  I propose that by examining the alterations and additions made to the physical descriptions of Hector, the Trojan who became an epitome of worthiness during the Middle Ages, one can gain insight on what was deemed as the most desirable qualities of masculinity for a medieval warrior at the time the writing occurred.

SAY WHAT YOU WILL: THE SUBVERSIVE WORD-PLAY OF EXETER RIDDLE 39

The advent of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England introduced new discourses rooted in their appeal to textual authority, grounded in scriptural and patristic texts.  As the eternal fates of souls depended on their scrupulous avoidance of error, vernacular homilists such as Ælfric and Wulfstan display an anxious concern to draw on these authorities with the utmost accuracy and fidelity.  Exeter Riddle 39, one of the most obscure items in a sequence of deliberately enigmatic texts, stakes out a small but dramatic space for the spoken word against scripture's overwhelming prestige.  Possibly reflecting a native tradition of oral wisdom, of which the riddles themselves may be examples, it hints at its most likely solution - 'speech' - in a manner that trumps scripture at its own game: first by flirting with the notion that the most potent authority of the gospels stands on the prior authority of Jesus' oral teaching and second by its playful suggestion that anything said about its solution will be true.  In the world of textual authorities error threatens constantly, but in this riddle's play with the notion of speech itself, anything spoken in reply 'solves' the riddle, a cheerful hermeneutic holiday from the rigours of the exegetical tradition.

ANCIENT SYMBOLISM IN EARLY CHRISTIAN ICONOGRAPHY: THE IMAGE OF THE ENTHRONED CHRIST IN THE BOOK OF KELLS

The early illustrated Christian Gospel Books, of which the Book of Kells is the most luxuriously decorated of the Insular examples, were not only tangible evidence of the Christian revelation, but were sophisticated tools to impress and educate.  The visual combination of the symbolism of ancient classical mythology and the artistic imagination of these Celtic Christians integrates religious complexities.  The allusive iconographic compositions convey developing theological beliefs.  The Kells portraits of the enthroned Christ and the author, Matthew, have identical geometric construction.  It is the decorative symbolism that identifies aspects of Christian belief.  This paper will examine the embedded symbolism in the portrait of Christ, in which the Kells scribe-artists creatively deviated from known contemporary prototypes to visually express a theological interpretation of the enthroned Christ in terms of an ancient metaphor.

CONQUEST AND CONFORMITY IN PENANNULAR BROOCH MANUFACTURE

Production of penannular brooches gained an impetus in the late seventh to eighth centuries in Scotland and Ireland.  These brooches had a very long chronology of manufacture and in Irish contexts have been viewed as emblems of status.  In Ireland production of penannular brooches was a feature of secular and ecclesiastical elite sites, whereas Scotland has only three definitive secular production sites.  The manufacture of these signifiers of status at the peripheral site of the Brough of Birsay, Orkney, raises many questions as to the involvement of the Orkney people in the wider Insular community.  Orkney's importance is born out in various Irish annalistic references, the most tantalising being to the Pictish king Bridei mac Bili's conquest of Orkney in 681.  This paper seeks to offer an explanation as to the significance of penannular brooch production with particular reference to Orkney and asks whether production occurred within a context of political emancipation or imposition.

INVASION, SETTLEMENT OR POLITICAL CONQUEST: CHANGING REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ARRIVAL OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS IN BRITAIN

The nature of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain c 450-600, and the survival of the incumbent Romano-British population, has long been an emotive topic.  Traditional views represented the coming of the Anglo-Saxons as an invasion of entire tribes with large and aggressive warbands and used vivid imagery of the Anglo-Saxons 'storming the earthwork camps ... slaughtering and driving away the Romanised Britons' and of the Romano-Britons being 'as nearly extirpated as a nation can be'.  The last forty years, however, has seen a growing trend towards representations of the Anglo-Saxon arrival as an elite settlement, in which the Romano-Britons assimilated with the Anglo-Saxons, adopting their cultural characteristics in order to fit in to a new social order.  In this paper my aim is to analyse the changing views of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain and to attempt to use post-colonial theory to inform the analysis.  If the aftermath of the coming of the Anglo-Saxons can be likened to a post-colonial context, with the Anglo-Saxons and Romano-Britons cast as colonials and indigenous peoples respectively, can post-colonial theory shed any light on the discourse surrounding the period, and on explanations of how 'Angle-land' developed its post-colonial identity?

SUBJECTIVITY AND THE OTHER IN MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

This paper will analyze the importance of medieval philosophy for psychoanalysis, mainly focusing on Lacanian psychoanalysis.  The development of medieval Christian thought from Anselm through Augustine and Aquinas was influenced by the idea of the Other which could be seen as God or as discourse.  These medieval philosophers had seen how the existence of God as Other might translate itself  into a theory of discourse which weakens the existential necessity of deity.  For example, Anselm's argument inspired Gaunilo the Fool to equate the existence of God with the existence of a fictional island, and Augustine asked if one could really live as a Christian in a non-Christian state.  This problematic was developed by Jacques Lacan who builds his negative theology of lack according to which religion is the symptom that invents the existence of the other and tries to make him indestructible, but it never rises above the level of wishful thinking.  However, through the notion of the Real Lacan inadvertently adopts the theological argument which regains ontological status of the subject.  Therefore, this paper will focus on the problematic nature of divinity (in relation to discursive construction of a social link) that is discussed in medieval philosophy, especially that of Aquinas and Augustine and in which way this problematic is taken by the psychoanalysis of Lacan that constructs the notion of continuing subjectivity from medievalism onwards or transhistorical subjectivity.

DRUIDS TO PRIESTS

Any consideration of the issues of conquest and continuity relating to the Pre-Christian Britons, commonly called Celts today, will never be easy.  From a people who have been branded as bloodthirsty, who recorded their sagas and history only in oral expression and poetry, comes a modern day expression of the Christian faith that is receiving great consideration both in the Celtic lands and in the diaspora around the world.  This paper will examine what we know of the early Britons and their priestly class - the Druids - and will briefly consider the impact on the Christian monks and priests who, for the first time, attempt to write down the ancient stories of the people whom they evangelize.  What was the degree of reliability of the sources we use to understand these matters?  What do those sources tell of the early Briton (Celtic) society and how it functioned?  How did the priestly figures - the Druids - exercise their role amongst the community and family life?  And what of the closeness to place and the natural environment in this community and its spirituality?

THE TRIUMPH OF LEANDER'S CATHOLIC FAMILY OVER ARIAN RULERS

Leander, strongly opposed to the Arian King Liuvigild, was exiled to Constantinople, where he became a close friend of a charismatic monk called Gregory, the future Pope.  Earlier Leander's younger brothers, the infant Isidore and still young Fulgentius, were at risk in Spain, after their Hispano-Roman parents had settled in North Africa with the boys' sister, the future abbess, Florentina.  On his return to Spain, as bishop of Seville Leander played the key rôle in converting the country's new king, Reccared, and thereby most of his people, to the orthodox Catholic faith, as Pope Gregory's letters enthusiastically reveal.  Interesting comments on his family appear in Leander's Regula, for which an English version will be circulated.  Leander was dead by 600.  That year the historian Isidore took over his brother's library, and soon afterwards his post as archbishop of Seville and of Spain.  Both became Saints.

OLD SYSTEMS FOR NEW MASTERS: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORSE KINGDOMS IN ENGLAND DURING THE NINTH CENTURY

As the Viking great army moved through England between 865 and 878 it conquered three of the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.  Upon conquest, however, instead of taking direct control the Norse put an Anglo-Saxon client king on the throne to rule until the Norse were ready to settle the kingdom.  The decision to initially use local rulers, unique amongst Viking armies, and the extent of the area that they settled, later known as the Danelaw, suggests that the great army arrived in England with clear objectives, and that these objectives were adhered to for much of the campaign.  The establishment of the Norse kingdoms in England obviously involved a large degree of change, especially once members of the great army began to settle.  However, the use of Anglo-Saxon client kings indicates a strong degree of continuity, as Anglo-Saxon administrative systems appear to have remained intact, although they now served new political masters. This paper will focus upon the establishment of the client kingdoms and how its kings were used by the great army.

BEFORE BEOWULF: ON THE PROTO-HISTORY OF OLD GERMANIC VERSE

Our most recent handbooks still assume that the alliterative line common to Old English, Old Norse and early German verse, is essentially primeval.  This theory seems a logical consequence of Eduard Sievers's late-nineteenth-century demonstration of the common features of the oldest Germanic metres, but has never been empirically tested.  Although early epigraphic evidence is often cited as evidence for a millennium-long pedigree for the alliterative tradition, essential to any understanding of early English verse, such claims are fundamentally problematic.  Very few metrical inscriptions dating from before the eighth century evidence anything like the alliterative line of the Old High German Lay of Hildebrand or the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf.  On the contrary, quite different forms of verse are attested in runic inscriptions from late antiquity and the early medieval period.  This paper summarises the evidence from these early testimonies and suggests a more nuanced and linguistically plausible scheme for the history of native English, continental and Scandinavian verse in the late proto-historical period.

BASILICA OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD IN VELUSHINA

The basilica of the Holy Mother of God in Velushina stands on the south-eastern outskirts of the village, next to the Roman road of Via Egnatia and in the vicinity of the ancient Bishopric of Heraclea Lyncestis.  The medieval name of Velushina was a local Slavonic form derived from the cult name of Mother of God Velika Eloussa.  The oldest Christian basilica was built on the foundations of the shrine connected with the cult of the Great Mother Goddess, which during the centuries had a few different phases of building reconstruction and mural decoration.  The earliest phase was 'Constantine's basilica' which was in use between the fourth and fifth century.  A fragment of marble relief with a representation of the Good Shepherd is well preserved, and can also be dated from the Justinian's renovations.  Justinian's basilica was composed of a single nave with side aisles.  The communication from the central aisle to the subsidiary aisles and the narthex was entered through a triple passage-tribelon.  It was a provincial replica of the basilicas of the Virgin Archaeropoetos and St Demetrius in Thessalonica.  It seems that the building suffered from the invasions of the peoples in the period between the fifth and sixth century.

CONQUEST AND CONTINUITY IN INTELLECTUAL LIFE

It makes excellent sense to ask whether a model of conquest or one of continuity is more appropriate to late antiquity and the early middle ages.  For example, the so-called Fall of the Roman Empire in the West can be looked at as either a process of conquest, with a mighty political structure being violently overthrown, or or continuity, as processes well under way in the Roman period came to term.  This paper will consider some developments in cultural and intellectual life in these terms.  It will evaluate the activities of scholars and artists and examine some of the most distinctive cultural products of the period, such as the mass, mosaics and scholarly tractates, seeking to establish whether they can be better understood as new ways supplanting old ones or an organic development of what had gone before.

BEDE AND THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON

The Temple of Solomon is the most mentioned building in the Bible.  The dimensions, a description of the overall plan and the artefacts of the Temple are described in I Kings 6-8 and Ezekiel 40-42.  However, the architectural plan and design of the features of the Temple are a forgotten memory that has been a subject of much speculation.  In fact there is no evidence that there ever was a King Solomon or that he had a temple.  However, the existence or non-existence of the Temple of Solomon has not stopped it from being one of the most important and influential buildings, in both philosophical and physical manifestations, throughout time. In I Corinthians, Paul of Tarsus claimed that he was like a master-builder laying the foundations of the Temple of God; this Temple was built of faithful souls.  Paul turns away from a physical temple to the congregation and the spiritual temple within.  Solomon's Temple and Paul's master builder analogy become a powerful and enduring Temple metaphor in Christian writings.  Bede's De Tabernaculo and De Templo reflect this tradition by claiming that the building of the Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple signified one and the same Church of Christ.  This paper explores Bede's Solomon Temple, the building and the metaphor.

COUNTS, COUNTIES AND CONTINUITY

This paper will examine the comes civitatis (count of the city territory) as a political institution of public, official power that continued throughout the early Middle Ages.  Its origins as a very late Roman office are rejected; rather, it is argued to have arisen at the beginning of the early medieval kingdoms.  The civitas (county) is however a Roman unit of government that continued in the post-Roman West.  The paper will analyse counts as royal officials and focus on the kingdom of the Franks.  Their presence in Gregory of Tours and later formularies will be considered.  The comes civitatis will be presented as a continuing institution from Merovingian to Carolingian governance, on which Carolingian organisation was brought to bear.  Carolingian counts were royal officials and royal vassals.  Their relation to the interstices of public and private power will be examined, especially as the Carolingian Empire broke up in civil war.  The Life of Gerald of Aurillac provides some evidence of how matters stood at the turn of the ninth into the tenth century.  For the remainder of the paper two case studies, of the successful counts of Anjou and the unsuccessful counts of Mâcon, will take us past the point where what remained of the old public government broke down very quickly and completely and the royal bannum extended by kings to their counts came to be wielded by anyone with sufficient resources, especially knights and castles.  By c 1050 the extremely old public office of the comes civitatis was no more.  The paper invites critical consideration of whether this very important, if its argument is correct, early medieval continuity was more apparent than real.

SIX DEGREES OF WHITENESS:  FINBARR, FINNIAN, FINNIAN, NINIAN, CANDIDA CASA AND HWITERNE

In the Spring 2001 issue of The Innes Review, Thomas Owen Clancy advances a compelling argument for the identification of St Ninian of Whithorn, St Finnian of Moville, St Finnian of Clonard and St Finbarr of Cork as a single historical figure.  This followed on from lengthy argument amongst scholars of early medieval Ireland concerning the identity, ethnicity, and probable conflation of the three Irish saints.  The most popular view, advanced and staunchly defended by Pádraig Ó Riain, is that the 'original' form of the name was the Gaelic form Findbarr, from which Finnian was derived by hypocorism.  Clancy advances scribal error as the final step in the evolution of the name through Uinniau to Ninian.  The common element in the Gaelic names, fin, means 'white'.  Ninian's foundation in south-western Scotland is called in Latin Candida Casa, in Old English Hwiterne, both also denoting whiteness.  This is generally held to reflect either the physical nature of Ninian's church (limewashed or of pale stone) or the moral nature of its inhabitants (pure and shining).  This paper suggests that the name of the place rather reflects the name of its founder, and explores some further onomastic implications in words suggesting whiteness.

EMPOWERING YOUR RESEARCH: SOURCES AND RESOURCES FOR EARLY MEDIEVAL STUDIES

Literature searching can be especially daunting these days, when resources and ways of accessing them change constantly.  Even experienced researchers can be oblivious to important new resources.  This session will survey ways of researching early medieval studies, showing you how to access a wide range of resources and demonstrating their usefulness (or otherwise) with an exemplary search.  We will also take a brief look at the MetaLib gateway, the system that the University of Melbourne is introducing next year.

HUMOUR IN THE LIVES OF THE FEMALE IRISH SAINTS

The topic of humour has remained largely neglected in early medieval studies, yet it forms an integral part of the distinctive nature of early Irish hagiography.  Taking examples from the Lives of four early Irish female saints, Brigit, Samthann, Monenna and Ite, this paper will examine the different types of humour available to the authors of these Lives as well as the ways humour was employed to articulate relationships and power.  The humour in these Lives leaps out at the reader, immediately setting them apart from their continental equivalents, resulting in a distinctive and even idiosyncratic approach to religious ideals and goals, which in turn helps to define the character of the early Irish religious world.

CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF IN THE VITA OF ST GUTHLAC

The Anglo-Saxon saints' vitae, particularly Cynewulf's St Guthlac, exemplify the relationship between a consciousness of self and spiritual conflict.  While various concepts of the self developed from antiquity, the association between the self and the nature of the soul is solely attributed to Plato.  Furthermore, concepts of the self can also be defined in terms of conflict between good and evil, soul and body, material and immaterial, mortal and immortal, to name just a few dichotomies.  Consequently, these definitions are also influenced by perceptions on the nature of evil, the role of free will and the fate of the soul after death.  These aspects of the self are evident in Plato's thought, though not exclusively, and were further developed by Plotinus and St Augustine.  The saints' vitae exemplify the concepts associated with the self, as they are concerned with ideal types whereby good and evil are clearly defined.  This paper will explore the concept of the self as manifested in the Anglo-Saxon saint's vita of St Guthlac.

ISSUES OF INFLUENCE AND CONTINUITY IN BYZANTINE AND UMAYYAD PALACE DESIGN IN THE LATE ANTIQUE AND EARLY MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

In this paper I will examine the issue of the cultural origins of, and influences upon Late Antique and Early Byzantine and Islamic palace design, drawing upon examples from Constantinople, Ravenna, Sassanid Iran and the Umayyad Caliphate.  These structures have an importance both as material evidence for the evolution of building forms and their usage, and for their subsequent influence upon Western mediaeval architecture.  I will discuss the debate over the question of Roman influence upon these cultural forms which has been asserted by prominent historians.  Indeed questions of origin and cultural continuity relating to these structures have formed a strong and persistent line of enquiry and debate in twentieth-century scholarship, first coming to prominence and some notoriety during the 'Rom oder Orient' controversy, pitting proponents of an eastern origin for early mediaeval architecture, notably Strzygowski and Pope, against supporters of an origin in Roman architecture.  I will examine the cultural framing, attitudes and policies inherent to this East-West disputation and its subsequent transformations, in the light of recent attempts to place such scholarship within the framework of postcolonial theory.  I will, finally, suggest paths of interpretation of these palace structures beyond the limits of the East-West divide.