Anna Milne

This thesis explores the response of the Dominican Order to enduring questions regarding the meaning, purpose and presentation of religious poverty. From Christianity's inception, the Church has struggled with the question of how to deal with the fundamental Christian ideal of poverty in a religious institution that is not poor. Nowhere was this more prevalent than in the thirteenth century which saw the foundation of the Franciscan and Dominican Orders, who each placed poverty at the centre of an apostolic preaching ministry. While the Dominicans are considered essential agents of late‐medieval religious change, their close historical and ideological proximity to Saint Francis has meant that sometimes the particularities of their engagement with poverty have been overshadowed. Scholarly analysis of Dominican poverty is somewhat fragmented, dispersed in broader histories concerning the order or its various intellectual and institutional activities, and in those which discuss the...

This chapter examines the production, consumption and reception of Magna Carta and its association with the underdog from the perspective of New Zealand’s popular culture. Magna Carta’s symbolism blurs boundaries between truth and fiction, earnestness and caricature, academic and popular. Popular interpretations, in particular, are responsible for the creation and dissemination of a largely ahistorical relationship between the Charter and the concept of the underdog. Within this context, Magna Carta is often considered to be a weapon for the people to wield against a tyrannical elite. New Zealand provides an interesting case study to explore the multiplicity of meanings and uses that Magna Carta has for modern post-colonial societies. Furthermore it highlights the meaningful ways in which popular culture continues to employ the medieval Charter.