In this provocative account, Maureen Miller challenges traditional explanations of the process that changed the nature of religious institutions--and religious life itself--in the diocese of Verona during the early and central Middle Ages. Building on substantial archival research, she shows how demographic expansion, economic development, and political change helped transform religious ideals and ecclesiastical institutions into a recognizably "medieval" church.
In this provocative account, Maureen Miller challenges traditional explanations of the process that changed the nature of religious institutions—and religious life itself—in the diocese of Verona during the early and central Middle Ages. Building on substantial archival research, she shows how demographic expansion, economic development, and political change helped transform religious ideals and ecclesiastical institutions into a recognizably "medieval" church.
The influence of the Church on medieval life was all-pervasive. Through the wealth of medieval imagery contained in illuminated manuscripts, Justin Clegg provides an overview of the structure and workings of the Church.
After the Roman empire fell, medieval Europe continued to be fascinated by Rome itself, the 'chief of cities'. Once the hub of empire, in the early medieval period Rome became an important centre for western Christianity, first of all as the place where Peter, Paul and many other important early Christian saints were martyred: their deaths for the Christian faith gave the city the appellation 'Roma Felix', 'Happy Rome'. But in Rome the history of the faith, embodied in the shrines of the martyrs, coexisted with the living centre of the western Latin church. Because Peter had been recognised by Christ as chief among the apostles and was understood to have been the first bishop of Rome, his successors were acknowledged as patriarchs of the West and Rome became the focal point around which the western Latin church came to be organised. This book explores ways in which Rome itself was preserved, envisioned, and transformed by its residents, and also by the many pilgrims who flocked to the shrines of the martyrs. It considers how northern European cultures (in particular, the Irish and English) imagined and imitated the city as they understood it. The fourteen articles presented here range from the fourth to the twelfth century and span the fields of history, art history, urban topography, liturgical studies and numismatics. They provide an introduction to current thinking about the ways in which medieval people responded to the material remains of Rome's classical and early Christian past, and to the associations of centrality, spirituality, and authority which the city of Rome embodied for the earlier Middle Ages. Acknowledgements for grants in aid of publication are due to the Publication Fund of the College of Arts, Humanities, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences at University College Cork; to the Publication Fund of the National University of Ireland, Dublin; and to the Office of the Provost, Ohio Wesleyan University.
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables and Figures -- Notes on Contributors -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1 Status and Class in the Medieval Town -- 2 Conflict and Political Community in the Medieval Town: Disputes between Clergy and Laity in Hereford -- 3 The Church and the Jews in English Medieval Towns -- 4 Trade, Towns and the Church: Ecclesiastical Consumers and the Urban Economy of the West Midlands, 1290-1540 -- 5 The Origin and Early Development of the London Mendicant Houses
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.
An engaging, richly illustrated account of parish churches and churchgoers in England, from the Anglo-Saxons to the mid-sixteenth century Parish churches were at the heart of English religious and social life in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. In this comprehensive study, Nicholas Orme shows how they came into existence, who staffed them, and how their buildings were used. He explains who went to church, who did not attend, how people behaved there, and how they--not merely the clergy--affected how worship was staged. The book provides an accessible account of what happened in the daily and weekly services, and how churches marked the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Easter, and summer. It describes how they celebrated the great events of life: birth, coming of age, and marriage, and gave comfort in sickness and death. A final chapter covers the English Reformation in the sixteenth century and shows how, alongside its changes, much that went on in parish churches remained as before.
In this provocative account, Maureen Miller challenges traditional explanations of the process that changed the nature of religious institutions--and religious life itself--in the diocese of Verona during the early and central Middle Ages. Building on substantial archival research, she shows how demographic expansion, economic development, and political change helped transform religious ideals and ecclesiastical institutions into a recognizably "medieval" church.
In this volume leading scholars from around the world discuss the contribution of medieval church law to the origins of the western legal tradition. Subdivided into four topical categories, the essays cover the entire range of the history of medieval canon law from the sixth to the sixteenth century.
