THL303: Introduction to Church History: Rise of Islam & Carolingian Kings

Comprehensively encompasses the beliefs, practices, history, and culture of the Islamic world in a single, scholarly volume. Features over 1400 fully revised entries including a wide range of new entries covering the contemporary Islamic scene.

John L. Esposito, editor of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, has gathered together sixteen leading scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to examine the origins and historical development of Islam - its faith, community, institutions, sciences, and arts." "Written for the general reader but also appealing to specialists, The Oxford History of Islam offers the best of that recent scholarship, presented in a readable style and complemented by a rich variety of illustrations.

No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong's short history demonstrates that the world's fastest-growing faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.

This revised and updated second edition features a new section tackling the issues arising from Islam's changing role in the volatile world order of the new millennium. Appearing at the end of a book which explores the ideas and traditions of Islam in depth, this new section offers thought-provoking reflections on the role of religion in the current conflicts.

Examines the history of the great Islamic expansion, reveals how the Arab armies were able to overcome almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic settlement in new lands and the conversion to Islam of vast populations.

1. The End of the Imperial Ideal (877-888). 2. The New Kingdoms and Princedoms. 3. Territorial Organization in the First Half of the Tenth Century. 4. The Carolingian Restoration (936 to the Close the Tenth Century) --
pt. V. Rulers and Civilization in the New Europe. 1. The Carolingian Church. 2. Features of Carolingian Kingship. 3. The Carolingians and the Renewal of Western Economy. 4. The First Flowering of European Culture --
Map of Merovingian and Carolingian Gaul --
Genealogical Tables.

Einhard, biographer of Charlemagne. --
Charlemagne. --
Alcuin's revision of the Bible. --
The imperial coronation of Charlemagne: theories and facts. --
Charlemagne's programme of imperial government. --
The institutional framework of the Frankish monarchy: a survey of its general characteristics. --
Charlemagne's use of the oath. --
The use of the written word in Charlemagne's administration. --
The impact of Charlemagne on the institutions of the Frankish realm. --
The Frankish monarchy and its external relations, from Pippin III to Louis the Pious. --
The Church and the royal power in the Frankish monarchy under Pippin III and Charlemagne. --
The last period of Charlemagne's reign; a study in decomposition. --
Charlemagne's failure. --
Louis the Pious reconsidered. --
Some observations on the Ordinatio Imperii of 817. --
On the genesis and significance of the Treaty of Verdun (843). --
Select bibliography of the publications of F.L. Ganshof (p. 303-311).

The most important study of Charlemagne in a generation, this biography by distinguished medievalist Alessandro Barbero illuminates both the man and the world in which he lived. Charles the Great--Charlemagne--reigned from a.d. 768 to a.d. 814.

Discusses daily life during the time of Charlemagne, examining such topics as housing, clothing, food, childbearing, the economy, leisure times, and religion.

Beyond the Empire is a narrative which recounts the key role Rome had when Christians were discovering what it meant to live their faith as a recognized church. They were part of a city identified with an empire, which at first was self-assured but later in disarray. They learnt from it as well as partially transforming it. This enabled the Church, when the empire crumbled, to open to the new peoples beyond the Alps, mediating what it had received from classical and biblical sources to the nucleus of the modern world being formed in Western Europe