In the twentieth century, Mansfield concludes, more modern ways of studying Erasmus have emerged, notably through seeing him more precisely in his own historical context.
From the Wolfson Prize-winning author of God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain Between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, history changed. The grand narratives of the Enlightenment, concerned with kings and statesmen, gave way to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. Oral history, costume history, the history of food and furniture, of Gothic architecture, theatre and much else were explored as never before. Antiquarianism, the study of the material remains of the past, was not new, but now hundreds of men - and some women - became antiquaries and set about rediscovering their national history, in Britain, France and Germany. The Romantic age valued facts, but it also valued imagination and it brought both to the study of history. Among its achievements were the preservation of the Bayeux Tapestry, the analysis and dating of Gothic architecture, and the first publication of Beowulf. It dispelled old myths, and gave us new ones: Shakespeare's birthplace, clan tartans and the arrow in Harold's eye are among their legacies. From scholars to imposters the dozen or so antiquaries at the heart of this book show us history in the making.
The church in the West has subsisted for five hundred years in a state of ever-increasing multiple identities, many of which claim to be the best representation of the church established by Christ. Often attending novel models of the church are new scriptural interpretive methods that support theological claims. Rarely, however, has an exploration been undertaken to test the impact of this ecclesiological division on the reading of the Bible. A Darkened Reading explores the specific case of the nineteenth-century Church of England and competing interpretations of the book of the prophet Isaiah--a book of great importance in theological history--as a kind of parable of the existential anguish the church has experienced as a consequence of being torn apart.
A well written and in-depth overview of the life and literary accomplishments of Ronald Knox, the famous Catholic convert and apologist from England who was a major figure in the English Catholic literary revival in the first half of the twentieth century. Rooney presents a look at the full range of Knox's writings including his apologetics, detective fiction, satire and other genres, offering an intellectual portrait that is fascinating and engaging. He includes a heavy dose of sample writings from Knox throughout the book that gives it a kind of mosaic approach, and makes the works and the person of Knox emerge from the pages in a vivid and lively way. Knox was a prolific author who wrote over 75 books, as well as many articles and homilies. He wrote on many topics and genres including satire, novels, spirituality, and detective stories. Among his many books include The Hidden Stream, The Belief of Catholics, Captive Flames, Pastoral and Occasional Sermons and many more. There is a "Knox revival" going on today with much renewed interest in his writings, and is evidenced by the large Ronald Knox Society of North America.
But Flint's extensive research in the Vatican archives finds that even the most skillful British campaign would have found it difficult to set up diplomatic relations that, for the most part, the Papal government did not want.".