Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Faith, hope, and ethnicity : St. Mary's parish in Butte(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1997) Fischer, William Patrick; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Raymond A. Mentzer, Jr.This thesis studies the interplay between religion and society in the Roman Catholic parish of St. Mary's in Butte, Montana. The parish life of St. Mary's reveals in many ways the values parishioners and priests held, which were manifested in their parish ethnic and religious identity. Priests and parishioners alike incorporated ethnicity into the St. Mary's world of religion--the parish life. This led to the development of a parish ethnic identity. The parish community also developed a parish religious identity based on its cultural values. Thus, discernable ethnic and religious identities defined St. Mary's parish between 1916-1928.Item The will of the people : popular support for marriage reform, St. Andrews, 1559-1600(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1996) Nye, Jason Keith; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Raymond A. Mentzer, Jr.Historians have long viewed social discipline in the Scottish Reformation as complete. They believe that the Kirk imposed morals control over all segments of society equally and totally. Most base their theories on the intentions of the Kirk and its officials, while disregarding the lack of control experienced in most regions. I have chosen to look at the construction of social discipline, while concentrating on the area of marriage reform, in a community where morals control was successful. I searched for reasons for people to support the institutions providing ecclesiastical discipline, the kirk-session and presbytery, by looking at the records of their proceedings. Also taken into consideration were the statements of groups such as guilds, and the proceedings of civil courts. The Kirk at St. Andrews received much support from the community for social discipline. People cooperated with the administering of discipline, as well as submitted themselves for judgement. The Kirk chose to enforce control in matters which would receive support from the community. It was only because of support from the community that the Kirk was able to effectively administer ecclesiastical discipline. Not all Scottish communities had support for kirk-sessions. Towns with cooperation between civil and ecclesiastical authorities whose kirk-sessions enforced decrees popular with the community were successful in controlling morality. St. Andrews possessed these qualities; therefore, it was successful in controlling immoral behavior.Item Through the veiled window : feminine autonomy, masculine authority, and discursive tension in anchoritic writings(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2011) Hougen, Aspen Amanda; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Gwendolyn A. MorganAn examination of English Medieval texts produced by and for women who chose to live as anchoresses, pursuing a hermitic lifestyle of religious contemplation and prayer. Contemporary framings and traditional scholarly discussions of anchoritic women have tended to view them as powerless and silenced due to their life of permanent enclosure within their hermit's cell. This thesis argues for a more nuanced view of the personal freedom these women enjoyed and of the awareness of that freedom possessed by anchoresses and by the male religious authorities who supervised them. The thesis invokes close readings, discourse analysis, and historical context to reach the conclusion that anchoresses possessed a remarkable level of personal freedom and social power, and that this was known, if not acknowledged, by the writers of anchoritic texts.