Medieval Church

In this fascinating survey, Donald Logan introduces the reader to the Christian church, from the conversion of the Celtic and Germanic peoples through to the discovery of the New World. He reveals how the church unified the people of Western Europe as they worshipped with the same ceremonies and used Latin as the language of civilized communication. A History of the Church in the Middle Ages offers a unique perspective on the legacy and influence of the Christian church in Western culture. Never fixed or static, the church experienced remarkable periods of change between the sixth and sixteenth centuries. 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 churchFrom the crusades to the creation of magnificent architecture, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages explores the central role of the church in determining a thousand years of history.

In this book Morris examines the building of Christian society between 1050 and 1250. The two centuries covered were among the most creative in the history of the Church and saw the emergence of much that is considered characteristic of European culture and religion: universities, commmerical cities, hospitals, the crusades, the inquisition, papal government, canon law, and marriage in its "western" form.

Without meaning to be irreverent, it is fair to say that in the Middle Ages, at the height of its political and economic power, the Roman Catholic Church functioned in part as a powerful and sophisticated corporation. The Church dealt in a "product" many consumers felt they had to have: the salvation of their immortal souls. The Pope served as its CEO, the College of Cardinals as its board of directors, bishoprics and monasteries as its franchises. And while the Church certainly had moral and social goals, this early antecedent to AT&T and General Motors had economic motives and methods as well, seeking to maximize profits by eliminating competitors and extending its markets. In Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm, five highly respected economists advance the controversial argument that the story of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is in large part a story of supply and demand. Without denying the centrality--or sincerity--of religious motives, the authors employ the tools of modern economics to analyze how the Church's objectives went well beyond the realm of the spiritual. They explore the myriad sources of the Church's wealth, including tithes and land rents, donations and bequests, judicial services and monastic agricultural production. And they present an in-depth look at the ways in which Church principles on marriage, usury, and crusade were revised as necessary to meet--and in many ways to create--the needs of a vast body of consumers. Along the way, the book raises and answers many intriguing questions. The authors explore the reasons behind the great crusades against the Moslems, probing beyond motives of pure idealism to highlight the Church's concern with revenues from tourism and the sale of relics threatened by Moslem encroachment in the holy lands. They examine the Church's involvement in the marriage market, revealing how the clergy filled their coffers by extracting fees for blessing or dissolving marital unions, for hearing marital disputes, and even for granting permission for blood relatives to wed. And they shed light on the concept of purgatory, showing how this "product innovation" developed by the Church in the twelfth century--a form of "deferred payment"--opened the floodgates for a fresh market in post-mortem atonement through payments on behalf of the deceased. Finally, the authors show how the cumulative costs that the faithful were asked to bear eventually priced the Roman Catholic church out of the market, paving the way for Protestant reformers like Martin Luther. A ground-breaking look at the growth and decline of the medieval Church, Sacred Trust demonstrates how economic reasoning can be used to cast light on the behavior of any complex historical institution. It offers rare insight into one of the great historical powers of Western civilization, in a analysis that will intrigue anyone interested in life in the Middle Ages, in church history, or in the influence of economic motives on historical events.

This is the first full scholarly study of the relationship between native secular law and the church in medieval Wales. The interaction was close, despite Archbishop Pecham's condemnation of native law as the work of the devil. Huw Pryce assesses the influence of the church on Welsh law, examining the participation of churchmen in the composition of lawbooks and the administration of legal processes and analyzing ecclesiastical criticism of native customs, notably those concerning marriage. He considers the extent to which Welsh law defended the authority and possessions of the church, focusing in particular on the status of clerics and on rights of sanctuary and lordship. The book throws revealing new light on both the law and the church in Wales in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As a study of the impact of ecclesiastical reform on a society perceived by some contemporaries as barbarian and immoral, this scholarly and lucid account makes an important contribution to medieval history.

Covering a thousand years of history, this volume tells the story of the creation of Western civilization in Europe and the Mediterranean. Now available in a compact, more convenient format, it offers the same text and many of the illustrations which first appeared in the widely acclaimed Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe. Written by expert scholars and based on the latest research, the book explores a period of profound diversity and change, focusing on all aspects of medieval history from the empires and kingdoms of Charlemagne and the Byzantines to the new nations which fought the Hundred Years War. The Oxford History of the Medieval World also examines such intriguing cultural subjects as the chivalric code of knights, popular festivals, and the proliferation of new art forms, and the catastrophic social effect of the Black Death. Authoritative and eminently readable, this book will entertain as much as it will educate.

This is the first of two volumes in McManner's magesterial reconstruction of the complex hierarchical world of the Gallican Church destroyed by the French Revolution. It describes the diocesan and parochial structure of the Church, portraying the clergy and their lifestyle from the palaces of the aristocratic bishops to the humblest nunnery, and, in a multitude of portraits, analyzing their motivations and sense of vocation. In a detailed fresco he presents the religion of the people, whether centering in the parish church or in confaternities, and the observances of folk religion outside it.

In this second volume of McManner's magnum opus, the author explores the relations of Church and State: the wealth of the clergy and their payment of taxation, and their role in the official life of the nation, in the Court at Versailles, in the army and navy, in collaboration with the police, and on the scaffold. He details throughout the tensions within the Church establishment and between clergy and laity, arriving at their denouement in the final description of the descent of the reign of Louis XVI towards the Revolution.

Volume three of this exciting series focuses on Jewish intellectual history in the Middle Ages. The editors and contributors have made available for the first time in English translation seminal articles culled from the wealth of scholarly studies written in Hebrew by experts of the past generation and current researchers breaking new ground in the field. The Binah series provides a valuable resource for teaching this rich period in Jewish civilization on the undergraduate level.