Medieval Christianity: Reference Materials

This pioneering work in the history of science, which originated in a series of three Gauss Seminars given at Princeton University in 1984, demonstrated how the roots of the scientific revolution lay in medieval scholasticism. A work of intellectual history addressing the metaphysical foundations of modern science, Theology and the Scientific Imagination raised and transformed the level of discourse on the relations of Christianity and science. Amos Funkenstein was one of the world's most distinguished scholars of Jewish history, medieval intellectual history, and the history of science. Called a genius and Renaissance man by his academic colleagues, Funkenstein was legendary for his ability to recite long literary passages verbatim and from memory in Latin, German, French, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Greek decades after he had last read them. A winner of the coveted Israel Prize for History, Funkenstein was born and raised in Palestine and received his Ph.D. in history and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin in 1965, as one of the first Jewish students to receive a doctorate in Germany after World War II.

Religion in medieval Europe was hugely important, and impinged upon the most mundane transactions and everyday experiences. But was the period a uniform 'Age of Faith'? By focusing on the ordinary laity, this account unlocks the multiple meanings of religion. Holiness, piety and belief are explained and contextualized, as are heresy, dissent and superstition. The themes explored include religious acculturation, community, intercession and Christian identity as well as occasions of unbelief and lay people's rejection of the Church's message.

The main subjects of inquiry in this volume center around the major areas in which the honoree, Gordon Leff, has made fundamental contributions. These include learned and popular heresy (Cathars, Wyclif, Lollardy, and the concept of heresy itself); the history of medieval universities and thought (featuring the religious at Paris and Cambridge, Ockham, and Paris theologians' views on the Jews); later medieval religious, and early modern views of the crusades. The book is completed with a bibliography of works by Gordon Leff.

The heroic efforts of church builders in these centuries (1000-1300) reflect a society deeply imbued with Christian devotion, with the belief that it should be expressed in visible building, with a sense of sin and judgement that could only be expiated by immensely generous gifts to fabric funds, in awe of a divine being who rejoiced in the beauty of human craftmanship and welcomed the dedication of all that was richest and best to his own worship. But this inspiring statement hides a deeper truth: that in this society, as in all, there was much variety of approach and faith and sentiment; that there were many who protested, or happily ignored the collecting boxes; that there were many who gave lavishly to one church while trying to destroy another.

For well over fifty years, medievalists have stressed that the study of medieval religion should focus not on doctrinal statements or the theological controversy characteristic of narrow university circles but rather on religious practice. Yet the source collections available for teaching have lagged behind, including only a few well-known philosophical or theological texts as if they represented medieval religion. Now at last, we have a collection that casts a fresh and original eye on medieval Christianity, presenting a wide range of documentation on practice and piety from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. Wisely eschewing conventional boundaries between superstition, heresy, and orthodoxy, the editor includes evidence of witchcraft and protest as well as of earnest efforts to educate the pious. He also rightly questions the assumption that popular religion was essentially different from the thought and practice of the elites. With selections long enough to give a flavor of the complexities of medieval experience, John Shinners' source book enables readers to hear the concerns of conjurers and wisewomen as well as preachers and teachers, peasants and aristocrats, of ordinary laypeople as well as clergy, religious virtuosi, and charismatics.

"In 'The Laity in the Middle Ages' Andre Vauchez explores the contribution of the laity to medieval religious life between 1050 and 1450. Each essay offers a vivid introduction to some aspect of the lay contribution, from crusading to confraternities. Women come in for special treatment as mystics, spiritual spouses, and prophets. The tensions between the laity and the clergy, and the male hierarchy and female religious receive particularly close attention, as does the intriguing medieval concern with chaste marriages. Taken together, these essays offer an invaluable approach to the religious life of high medieval Europe" -John Van Engen, author of Devotio Moderna.

"Always Reforming" highlights the fact that in the modern era the notion of heresy has fallen apart. Every church has been declared heretical at some time or other by another church, and it is not the role of the historian to decide who is right or wrong on doctrinal issues. Christians have adapted to sweeping social changes, including scientific discoveries and changing world-views.

Middle Ages:Primary Sources offers nineteen full or excerpted documents written during the Middle Ages.Entries include excerpts from Augustine's "Confessions" and Dante's "Inferno";Marco Polo's description of his travels in China;"The Thousand and One Nights";and Japan's "Seventeen -Article Constitution",written by Prince Shotoku Taishi.Each entry is accompanied by introductory and historical information to place the document in context as well as a document-specific glossary and a list of books and Web sites for more information.The volume is illustrated with more than thirty images and includes a timeline of events and an index offering easy access to the people,places,and subjects discussed throughout "Middle Ages:Primary Sources."

From the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance,this comprehensive work presents the full pageant of medieval times across the entire Old World-with articles on the New World,Africa,and the Far East as well.Twenty major essays anchor the text while more than 600 entries written by a coterie of the world's best medieval historians and writers provide specific information on everything from the Abbadid Dynasty to the Seal of Zug.Interspersed throughout are maps,diagrams,and more than 250 color and black-and-white illustrations detailing all the elements of everyday life:dress,locales,edifices,ceremonies,customs,military tactics,travel,home life,commerce,religion,and royalty.Generous helpings of sidebar material complement the text with chronologies of important lives and events,glossaries of medieval terminology and jargon-excerpts from the great documents of the times and from writings of the great personages,genealogical charts-even recipes for classic medieval dishes and instruction on medieval skills and practices.And at every opportunity,material is compared with modern life through "then and now" images,an ingenious tool that sheds new light on the origins of modern social and political phenomena.-Dust jacket.

This is the story of the emergence of the Church and the Western world from the chaos and barbarism that followed the destruction of the Roman Empire and the triumph of the enemies of classical civilization.
In this sweeping narrative Bernard Guillemain shows the unifying power of the Church as it helped to mold a European Christendom after the rupture in 1054 of the Eastern and Western Churches.This is also the story of the great crusades against the virile Islamic powers of that time-the holy wars that lasted for hundred of years.
This was the period that brought forth some of the greatest philosophers that Christianity had created up to that time-Boethius,Anselm,Cassiodorus.Here were the intellectual foundations of what would be the Occidental worldview for hundred of years.
This period saw the rise of papal authority in the world,as the Pope became in reality the double heir of St.Peter and the Roman Emperors.The whole medieval world of feudal structure was taking shape.The center of culture was moving from the towns to the estates.
In short,this volume is a total rendering of the rise of a civilization,which was unique in its form and spiritual in its intended direction.-Flap cover.

The period covers the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, rich with the names of great men: St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante Aligheri; and great events: the Inquisition, the construction of the great Gothic cathedrals, the struggles of kings and popes, the continuing struggle between Christianity and Islam. Here too is the story of the Avignon popes, and the decline of papal authority in temporal matters; the conflict of Urban VI and Clement VII and the disorder that followed the confusion of their elections. This volume ends with the last days of the Middle Ages, which closed with divisions within the Church, plague and pestilence ravaging all of Europe, and pillage and destruction resulting from local and national wars. In brief, this volume is a complete rendering of the collapse of an era, a period which was, at its peak, one of the most splendid creations of humanity.

"From our twentieth-century perspective, we tend to think of the Europe of the past as a colonizer, a series of empires that conquered lands beyond their borders and forced European cultural values on other peoples. This provocative book shows that Europe in the Middle Ages was as much a product of a process of conquest and colonization as it was later a colonizer." "Robert Bartlett concentrates on the establishment of states by conquest and the peopling of distant countries by immigrants along the peripheries of the European continent. He asks what developments in language, law, belief, and habit accompanied warfare and settlement, as he explores the formation of racially mixed societies on the edges of Europe and the ideological justification for aggressive expansion." "This fascinating account shows how the expansionary power of this civilization sprang from its centers, even if it may be seen most starkly at its edges. Hence the theme is not only colonial conquest and settlement, the moving edge, but also the formation of an increasingly homogeneous society that by the end of the Middle Ages lay poised to enter a yet more expansionary phase of its history: one whose consequences are still around us."--Jacket.

"This comprehensive introduction to medieval theology introduces students to the period through examination of the major individual theologians of the time. Chronologically arranged, it allows students to explore the crucial period between the Church Fathers and the Reformation when theology first emerged as an academic discipline and when important controversies took place. These issues clarified the nature and purpose of the Church and the sacraments, and reopened many of the earlier debates about orthodoxy. This was the period which sowed the seeds of divisions in the church which persist today."--Jacket.

The fourth volume in A People's History of Christianity series accents the astounding range of cultural and religious experience within medieval Christianity and the ways in which religious life structured all aspects of the daily lives of ordinary Christians. With ranking scholars from the U.S. and the Continent, this volume explores rituals of birth and death, daily parish life, lay-clerical relations, and relations with Jews and Muslims through a thousand years and many lands.

Deals with the Catholic Church in the period c. 350-1050. These are the centuries which saw the end of the Roman Empire in the West; the irruption of the Barbarians; the conversion first to Arianism and then to Catholicism of the Germanic peoples, and the consequent development of their spiritual and intellectual lives; the 'golden age' of Byzantium and the growing rift between it and Rome; the Moslem attack on Christendom and the Islamic conquest of the Holy Places, and Charlemagne's attempt to re-create the Western Empire in a Germanic, Christian form. The volume opens with a study of St. Augustine of Hippo stressing his influence upon the dark centuries which followed his death. This serves as a kind of preface for the rest of the work, which includes, within the general framework of the centuries it describes, detailed examinations of the most important individuals and events therein; these include sections dealing specifically with the two outstanding popes of the period, Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, with saints ranging from St. John Chrysostom and St. Boniface to St. Benedict, and with the principal secular rulers of the epoch -- Justinian and Theodora, Clovis, Heraclius, Irene and, of course, the great Charlemagne.

Though buffetted on all sides by rapid and at times cataclysmic social, political, and economic change, the medieval church was able to make adjustments that kept it from becoming simply a fossil from the past rather than an enduring institution of salvation. The dynamic interaction between the medieval church and society gives form to this compelling and well-informed study by Adriaan Bredero. By considering medieval Christianity in full relation to its historical context, Bredero elucidates complex medieval realities - many of which run counter to common modern notions about the Middle Ages. Bredero moves beyond the usual treatment of history by framing his overall discussion in terms of a fascinating and relevant question: To what extent is Christianity today still molded by medieval society? The book begins with an overview of religion and the church in medieval society, from the early Christianization of Western Europe through the fifteenth century. Bredero counters earlier romanticized assessments of the Middle Ages as a thoroughly Christian period by arriving at a definition of Christendom, not in its original sense as the empire of Charlemagne, but rather as "the countries, people, and matters which stood under the influence of Christ." Other chapters develop the following topics: medieval conceptions of reality that are prone to modern misunderstanding, such as a view of time that distinguished the distant, "ancient" past - an ideal, golden age - from the recent, "modern" past - an inferior, sub-Christian time - a concept that led to the rise of millenarianism; the role of Jerusalem in Western Christian thought - as a goal for pilgrims, a motivation for the Crusades, and a source of holy relics; the "Truce of God" movement as an attempt by bishops to restore peace, along with an analysis of its motives, limitations, and consequences; the rise of the Cistercian and Cluniac orders as reform movements within monasticism, with particular attention to the role of Bernard of Clairvaux; the veneration of saints, the nature of sainthood, and the growing authority of the pope in determining who was to be called a "saint"; Peter Abelard and his peculiar adversities; the evolution from the ideals of Francis of Assisi to the lifestyle of the Franciscan order. In an important and particularly intriguing chapter, Bredero deals with anti-Jewish feelings in the Middle Ages, examining how both the medieval church and society at large persecuted the Jews.

The rise of Constantinople and its significance, A.D. 323-602 / A.R. Lewis -- Christianitas eclipses Romanitas in the life of Sidonius Apollinaris / William M. Daly -- The meaning of monastic cloister for women according to Caesarius of Arles / Donald Hochstetler -- The Eighth Council of Toledo (653) : precursor of medieval parliaments? / Jeremy duQuesnay Adams -- From Historiae to Historia Francorum and back again : aspects of the textual history of Gregory of Tours / Walter Goffart -- Saints and the public Christianity in the Historiae of Gregory of Tours / Kathleen Mitchell -- John Damascene and the history of the iconoclastic controversy / Thomas F.X. Noble -- The popes and the holy images in the eighth century / David S. Sefton -- Sacral kingship, biblical kingship, and the elevation of Pepin the Short / David Harry Miller -- From polis to parish / John J. Contreni -- Monks and pastoral care in the early Middle Ages / Thomas L. Amos -- Spiritale vinculum : the vocabulary of spiritual kinship in early medieval Europe / Joseph H. Lynch -- The pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins, 987-1040 / Bernard S. Bachrach -- Anselm of Havelberg : play and the dilemma of historical progress / Karl F. Morrison

This volume, a general history of the church in the Middle Ages, pays close attention to the spiritual, intellectual, and institutional aspects of medieval Christianity. From its beginnings, the church has existed in a state of tension between two forces: the spirit of order and the spirit of prophecy. The spirit of order attempts to reform humanity and human institutions; the spirit of prophecy attempts to transform them into the world of God. This tension created a balance within the church that kept it from forgetting the nature of basic religious experience while continuing to remain sensitive to the needs of society.

Prophecy and order -- Primitive Christianity -- The peace of the church -- The mind of the church, 300-700 -- The formation of the medieval order, 700-900 -- Christianity in society, 700-1050 -- Reform -- Revolution -- The thrust of the prophetic spirit -- The offensive of the papacy -- The scholastic order, 1050-1300 -- Christianity in the autumn of the Middle Ages -- Significant popes to 1500

This study is concerned with one central historical problem; the nature of the changes that intellectual and spiritual horizons of the Christian world from its establishment in the fourth century to the end of the sixth. Why, for example, were the assumptions, attitudes and traditions of Gregory the Great so markedly different from those of Augustine? "The End of Ancient Christianity" examines how Christians, who had formerly constituted a threatened and beleaguered minority, came to define their identity in a changed context of religious respectability in which their faith had become a source of privilege, prestige and power. Professor Markus reassesses the cult of the martyrs and the creation of schemes of sacred time and sacred space, and analyses the appeal of asceticism and its impact on the Church at large. These changes form part of a fundamental transition, perhaps best described as the shift from "Ancient" towards "Medieval" forms of Christianity, from an older and more diverse secular culture towards a religious culture with a firm biblical basis.

This collection of essays deals with a wide range of issues in the medieval and modern historiography of the early Middle Ages. Authors who receive extensive treatment are Cassiodorus, Gregory of Tours, Jonas of Orleans, Fredegar, Lupus of Ferrieres, Claudius of Turin, Benjamin of Tudela, and the brothers du Tillet; anonymous sources include the Royal Frankish Annals, the Tale of Rigrannus of Le Mans, and the Plan of St. Gall. Among the subjects treated at length are war, ethnicity, divine descent, gender, aristocratic power, Charlemagne, and Carolingian monasticism. The volume is intended to honour the work of Walter Goffart, whose scholarship has had a profound impact on our present understanding of the character of the early medieval west and its historical writing.

Three major themes run through these essays. Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 12 are in part an attempt to penetrate the world of ideas in which love and marriage and celibacy moved in the central Middle Ages; Chapters 5, 7 and 8 tackle aspects of religious sentiment, the first (as we must think) an aberration in sentiment reflected in the golden age of medieval forgery, the second the sentiment of dissent and its relation to the Catholic tradition of the same period, the third, religious sentiment in its most visible expression, in church building; and Chapters 10 and 11 approach the two key figures in the history of the religious life in the thirteenth century, St. Francis and St. Dominic. In a sense all these topics relate to the history of ideas, but not to the history of thought as commonly understood; for it is in the main ordinary ideas and assumptions of men who were not themselves distinguished as theologians or philosophers that are discussed: popes like Gregory VII and Gregory IX, saints like Francis and Dominic, and laymen like Wolfram von Eschenbach and Francesco di Marco Datini.

"A History of the Church in the Middle Ages" traces the story of the Christian church in Western Europe over the thousand years or so that comprise the medieval age. While this period witnessed the continuities of belief, ritual and even institutions, it also experienced remarkable changes when old forms were renewed or replaced and when new forms were created. Saint Francis of Assisi, the gentle poverello of Umbria, the martyr Thomas Becket, the ill-fated lovers Abelard and Heloise, the visionary Hildegard of Bingen, all testify to the diversity and richness of the medieval church.

The book traces the development of Christianity, and the Church that embodied it in western Europe, from the decline of the Roman Empire to the fifteenth century. The emphasis throughout is on change and development, for medieval society was no more static than is the society of today. Indeed, in the course of the thousand years covered in the book, we see it evolve from primitive and complex roots into a dynamic culture that, as the book closes, is poised on the threshold of the remarkable expansion of early modern times, when European civilization began to figure in a new world role. The Western Church evolved along with that society, sometimes in opposition to it, sometimes incorporating its structures and values into itself, and always ordering and shaping them the process. Although the book is richly informative, Professor Lynch is more concerned with movements and ideas than names and dates. His frame is Western Europe, though attention is given to both Byzantine Christianity and the impact of Islam. The treatment is broadly chronological, but at the heart of the book are separate parallel discussions of monastic life, heretics, friars, and the schools; and two key chapters which deal with the framework of the Christian life, and with the sacraments - those points of contact between Church and the individual men and women who made up Western Christendom itself.