Religion in the Medieval West

Religion in the Medieval West PDF Author: Bernard Hamilton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9780340808399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Western European civilization in the medieval centuries was a time of significant development as the ascendency of the Roman Catholic Church spread Christianity throughout Europe. This book examines the religious life of this formative period, the history of the institutional Church, and focuses on the interaction between the Church and secular members of society. This new edition has been updated, and includes new visual evidence and a glossary of technical terms.

Religion in the History of the Medieval West

Religion in the History of the Medieval West PDF Author: John Van Engen
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000949966
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
These ten essays by John Van Engen situate religion in the history of medieval Western Europe: as an unavoidable presence in everyday life, as a conceptual framework for social and political life, as a force integral to its historical dynamics. Four of the essays are bibliographical and retrospective in nature, reviewing the field broadly, but also pointing toward a more dialectical approach to understanding the interaction of religion and society in the European middle ages. Other studies deal with large topics usually subsumed under the abstract term 'Christianization'. They grapple with learned sources as well as those associated with 'popular' religion, and show what can be gained from an imaginative use of all that lawyers and theologians said about religion in their society. The essays, finally, look for the quality and dynamic of change, even inventiveness, released by religious action and conviction in medieval European society.

Religion and Society in the Medieval West, 600-1200

Religion and Society in the Medieval West, 600-1200 PDF Author: Henry Mayr-Harting
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780754668985
Category : Church and state
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The papers reprinted here all have to do with the very varied ways in which religion made an impact upon, or was intertwined with, political and social life. They span the period from 600 to 1200, with particular points of focus on early Anglo-Saxon England, Charlemagne, the Ottonian empire, and 12th-century England. In these articles, the Oxford historian Henry Mayr-Harting explores the religion of secular rulers, the religion (or relative lack of it) of bishops and churches, the religion of custodians at shrines or of recluses or artists, as well as religious phenomena such as angelic apparitions, conversion, or apocalypticism.

Motherhood, Religion, and Society in Medieval Europe, 400–1400

Motherhood, Religion, and Society in Medieval Europe, 400–1400 PDF Author: Dr Conrad Leyser
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409482715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
Who can concentrate on thoughts of Scripture or philosophy and be able to endure babies crying … ? Will he put up with the constant muddle and squalor which small children bring into the home? The wealthy can do so … but philosophers lead a very different life … So, according to Peter Abelard, did his wife Heloise state in characteristically stark terms the antithetical demands of family and scholarship. Heloise was not alone in making this assumption. Sources from Jerome onward never cease to remind us that the life of the mind stands at odds with life in the family. For all that we have moved in the past two generations beyond kings and battles, fiefs and barons, motherhood has remained a blind spot for medieval historians. Whatever the reasons, the result is that the historiography of the medieval period is largely motherless. The aim of this book is to insist that this picture is intolerably one-dimensional, and to begin to change it. The volume is focussed on the paradox of motherhood in the European Middle Ages: to be a mother is at once to hold great power, and by the same token to be acutely vulnerable. The essays look to analyse the powers and the dangers of motherhood within the warp and weft of social history, beginning with the premise that religious discourse or practice served as a medium in which mothers (and others) could assess their situation, defend claims, and make accusations. Within this frame, three main themes emerge: survival, agency, and institutionalization. The volume spans the length and breadth of the Middle Ages, from late Roman North Africa through ninth-century Byzantium to late medieval Somerset, drawing in a range of types of historian, including textual scholars, literary critics, students of religion and economic historians. The unity of the volume arises from the very diversity of approaches within it, all addressed to the central topic.

Religion in the Medieval West

Religion in the Medieval West PDF Author: Bernard Hamilton
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 9780340808382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
Western European civilization evolved during the medieval centuries when the whole area was converted to Christianity in its Latin Catholic form. This account is an introduction to the religious life of this formative period--but is concerned less with history of the institutional Church than with the interaction between the Church and lay society. This new edition has been updated throughout, and thoroughly reorganized, making it easier to approach and use. New visual evidence has been provided and a glossary of technical terms is included.

Medieval Religion and its Anxieties

Medieval Religion and its Anxieties PDF Author: Thomas A. Fudgé
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137566108
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
This book examines the broad varieties of religious belief, religious practices, and the influence of religion within medieval society. Religion in the Middle Ages was not monolithic. Medieval religion and the Latin Church are not synonymous. While theology and liturgy are important, an examination of animal trials, gargoyles, last judgments, various aspects of the medieval underworld, and the quest for salvation illuminate lesser known dimensions of religion in the Middle Ages. Several themes run throughout the book including visual culture, heresy and heretics, law and legal procedure, along with sexuality and an awareness of mentalities and anxieties. Although an expanse of 800 years has passed, the remains of those other Middle Ages can be seen today, forcing us to reassess our evaluations of this alluring and often overlooked past.

The Oldest Vocation

The Oldest Vocation PDF Author: Clarissa W. Atkinson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150174089X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
According to an old story, a woman concealed her sex and ruled as pope for a few years in the ninth century. Pope Joan was not betrayed by a lover or discovered by an enemy; her downfall came when she went into labor during a papal procession through the streets of Rome. From the myth of Joan to the experiences of saints, nuns, and ordinary women, The Oldest Vocation brings to life both the richness and the troubling contradictions of Christian motherhood in medieval Europe. After tracing the roots of medieval ideologies of motherhood in early Christianity, Clarissa W. Atkinson reconstructs the physiological assumptions underlying medieval notions about women's bodies and reproduction; inherited from Greek science and popularized through the practice of midwifery, these assumptions helped shape common beliefs about what mothers were. She then describes the development of "spiritual motherhood" both as a concept emerging out of monastic ideologies in the early Middle Ages and as a reality in the lives of certain remarkable women. Atkinson explores the theological dimensions of medieval motherhood by discussing the cult of the Virgin Mary in twelfth-century art, story, and religious expression. She also offers a fascinating new perspective on the women saints of the later Middle Ages, many of whom were mothers; their lives and cults forged new relationships between maternity and holiness. The Oldest Vocation concludes where most histories of motherhood begin—in early modern Europe, when the family was institutionalized as a center of religious and social organization. Anyone interested in the status of motherhood, or in women's history, the cultural history of the Middle Ages, or the history of religion will want to read this book.

Medieval Christianity

Medieval Christianity PDF Author: Daniel E. Bornstein
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451405774
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description


The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West

The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West PDF Author: Alison I. Beach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108770630
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the Middle Ages that all medievalists encounter monasticism in their intellectual worlds. While there is enormous interest in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.

Church and People in the Medieval West, 900-1200

Church and People in the Medieval West, 900-1200 PDF Author: Sarah Hamilton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317325338
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
During the middle ages, belief in God was the single more important principle for every person, and the all-powerful church was the most important institution. It is impossible to understand the medieval world without understanding the religious vision of the time, and this new textbook offers an approach which explores the meaning of this in day-to-day life, as well as the theory behind it. Church and People in the Medieval West gets to the root of belief in the Middle Ages, covering topics including pastoral reform, popular religion, monasticism, heresy and much more, throughout the central middle ages from 900-1200. Suitable for undergraduate courses in medieval history, and those returning to or approaching the subject for the first time.