Boethius, a late Roman philosopher, composed his last work, De Consolatione Philosophiae, while in prison. His final effort crowned a lifetime of philosophical achievement, and the work was influential throughout the Middle Ages. Frequently translated, the Consolation was one of the books which was chosen by Alfred, a ninth century Anglo-Saxon king, for use in the rebuilding of his kingdom after the Danish invasions. Although intended for an audience which was heavily influenced by a lively pagan tradition, the book was re-interpreted during the Carolingian period to conform to a strict Christian standard. Alfred's own interpretation is indicative of this amalgamation of ancient learning in the milieu of an emerging European culture, as well as his own pragmatic personality.

The history of California's Basque boardinghouses, or ostatuak, is the subject of this dissertation. To date, scholarly literature on ethnic boardinghouses is minimal and even less has been written on the Basque "hotels" of the American West. As a result, conclusions in this study rely upon interviews, census records, local directories, early maps, and newspapers. The first Basque boardinghouses in the United States appeared in California in the decade following the gold rush and tended to be outposts along travel routes used by Basque miners and sheepmen. As more Basques migrated to the United States, clusters of ostatuak sprang up in communities where Basque colonies had formed, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the late nineteenth century. In the years between 1890 and 1940, the ostatuak reached their zenith as Basques spread throughout the state and took their boardinghouses with them. This study outlines the earliest appearances of the Basque ostatuak, charts their expansion, and describes their present state of demise. The role of the ostatuak within Basque-American culture and a description of how they operated is another important aspect of this dissertation. Information from interviews supports the claim that the ostatua was the most important social institution …

The electrophysiological and morphological properties of small networks of mammalian neurons were investigated with mouse spinal cord monolayer cultures of 2 mm diameter grown on multimicroelectrode plates (MMEPs). Such cultures were viewed microscopically and their activity simultaneously recorded from 2 of any 36 fixed recording sites. The specific aims achieved were: development of techniques for production of functional MMEPs and maintenance of mini-cultures, characterization of the spontaneous activity of mini-cultures, application of inhibitory and disinhibitory agents, development of staining methods for cultured neurons and initial light microscopic analysis with correlation of electrophysiological and morphological characteristics.

This dissertation develops and utilizes a methodology for combining data drawn from the manuscript census returns and the county tax rolls to study landless farmers during the period from 1850 until 1880 in three Texas Brazos River Valley counties: Fort Bend, Milam, and Palo Pinto. It focuses in particular on those landless farmers who appear to have had no option other than tenant farming. It concludes that there were such landless farmers throughout the period, although they were a relatively insignificant factor in the agricultural economy before the Civil War. During the Antebellum decade, poor tenant farmers were a higher proportion of the population on the frontier than in the interior, but throughout the period, they were found in higher numbers in the central portion of the river valley. White tenants generally avoided the coastal plantation areas, although by 1880, that pattern seemed to be changing. Emancipation had tremendous impact on both black and white landless farmers. Although both groups were now theoretically competing for the same resource, productive crop land, their reactions during the first fifteen years were so different that it suggests two systems of tenant farming divided by caste. As population expansion put increasing pressure on the …

Girolamo Savonarola lived at the apex of the Renaissance, but most of his biographers regard him as an anachronism or a precursor of the Reformation. Savonarola, however, was influenced by the entire milieu of Renaissance Florence, including its humanism. Savonarola's major work, Triumph of the Cross, is a synthesis of humanism, neo-Thomism and mysticism. His political reforms were routed in both the millennialist dreams of Florence and the goals of civic humanism. Hoping to translate the abstract humanist life of virtue into the concrete, he ultimately failed, not because the Renaissance was rejecting the Middle Ages, but because the former was reacting against itself. Florence, for all its claims of being the center of the Renaissance, was not willing to make humanist reform a reality.

Scholars assert that the Cold War began at one of several different points. Material recently available at the National Archives yields a view different from those already presented. From these records, and material from the Foreign Relations Series, Parliamentary Debates, and United States Government documents, a new picture emerges. This study focuses on the British occupation of Germany and on the Council of Foreign Ministers' Moscow Conference of 1947. The failure of this conference preceded the adoption of the Marshall Plan and a stronger Western policy toward the Soviet Union. Thus, the Moscow Conference emphasized the disintegrating relations between East and West which resulted in the Cold War.

This thesis seeks to determine the historical role of the twelfth-century abbess Heloise, apart from the frequently cited and disputed letters exchanged between her and Peter Abelard. Independent information exists in the testimony of Heloise's contemporaries, in the rule written for her abbey the Paraclete, and in the liturgy of the Paraclete. This evidence not only substantiates an erudite Heloise in concert with the Heloise of the letters, but serves as testimony to a woman of ability and accomplishment who participated in monastic reform and who sought to bring a positive direction to women's lives in the cloister. From this, it becomes clear that although Heloise may not have written the letters ascribed to her she was certainly capable of writing them.

Muenster, Texas, in Cooke County, began in 1889 through efforts of German-American colonizing entrepreneurs who attracted settlers from other German-American colonies in the United States. The community, founded on the premise of maintaining cultural purity, survived and prospered for a century by its reliance on crops, cattle, and oil. In its political conservatism and economic ties to the land, Muenster resembled its neighboring Anglo-American communities. Its Germanic heritage, however, became pronounced in the community's refusal to accommodate to the prohibitionism of North Texas regarding alcoholic beverages and in the parishioners' fidelity to the Roman Catholic faith. These characteristics are verified in unpublished manuscripts, governmental documents, local records, and interviews with Muenster residents.

During World War II, the Allies not only defeated Germany; they destroyed the German army and warmaking capability. Five years after the surrender, Theodor Blank received the responsibility for planning the rearmament of West Germany starting from nothing. Although Konrad Adenauer was the driving force behind rearmament, Theodor Blank was the instrument who pushed it through Allied negotiations and parliamentary acceptance. Heretofore, Blank's role has been told only in part; new materials and the ability now to see events in a clearer perspective warrant a new study of Blank's role in the German rearmament process. Sources for this dissertation include: Documents on Foreign Relations of the United States; memoirs, among them those of Konrad Adenauer, Georges Bidault, Lucius Clay, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Anthony Eden, Ivone Kirkpatrick, Harold MacMillan, Kirill Meretskov, Jules Moch, Sergei Shternenko, Hans Speidel, Harry S. Truman, Alexander Vasilevsky, and Georgiy Zhukov; contemporary reports from newspapers, among them the Times (London), New York Times, Le Monde, Pravda, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, Suddeutsche Zeitung, and Das Parlement; Parliamentary Debates; official records; and interviews. Rearmament involved the interrelationship of vast, diverse interests: the conflict between East and West, national and international fears, domestic problems, and the interplay of leading personalities. When …