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Ecclesiastical History Archive
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Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
Posted on May 17, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious. -
Bede’s Perspective and Purpose in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No CommentsI argue that Bede’s involvement in ecclesiastical affairs throughout his life both illuminates and clouds his perspective on the history of the English church. -
Conflict and Coercion in Southern France
Posted on April 28, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper endeavors to examine the mechanisms by which the crown of France was able to subsume the region of Languedoc in the wake of the Albigensian Crusade in the thirteenth century. -
Conflict in the Parish: Antagonistic Relations Between Clerics and Parishioners
Posted on April 19, 2013 | No CommentsParishioners repeatedly complained about suffering under the rule of a petty tyrant who held grudges and exploited his power to administer the sacraments, or about the surly, combative temperament of their priest who was prone to fighting and creating discord within the parish. -
How the Bishop of Rome Assumed the Title of “Vicar of Christ”
Posted on April 4, 2013 | No CommentsActually, we’re going to answer that question right here by stating that if we look to any century for such a development, we would probably point to the 12th century. -
Corpus Christi Plays and the Stations of the Cross: Medieval York and Modern Sydney
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsThe earliest surviving reference to the Corpus Christi festival in York is dated 1322, when Archbishop William Melton commended it as „the glorious feast of the most precious sacrament of the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ‟. In 1408 the York Guild of Corpus Christi was established „as a confraternity of chaplains and lay persons, with the encouragement of the city government, probably to form the focus of the civic Corpus Christi Day procession‟. -
A question of time or a question of theology: A study of the Easter controversy in the Insular Church
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsTo date scholarly research has approached this topic from a medieval historical perspective. It has, however, never been approached from a purely theological stance. Questions regarding the Insular 84-year cycle have occupied scholars over the past one hundred years or so. A review of the literature reveals an advance in understanding the techniques of the computus of the Insular church. -
Scotland’s St Oran’s Cross to be restored
Posted on March 26, 2013 | No CommentsOne of the most important symbols of medieval Scotland, St Oran’s Cross, will be re-erected for the first time in centuries, as part of the celebrations of the 1450th anniversary of the established of a monastery on Iona in Scotland. -
Multi-confessionalism in Medieval and Ottoman Bosnia-Herzegovina
Posted on March 25, 2013 | No CommentsBy the fifth century CE, however, the Western Empire was unraveling, and Bosnia, the easternmost outpost of Latin jurisdiction, was being engulfed by throngs of barbarian Slavs. -
Gilbert Foliot and the two swords : law and political theory in twelfth-century England
Posted on March 18, 2013 | No CommentsConsidering the importance of the Church as a driving force in twelfth- century political history, the complex relationship between piety and Church involvement in lay politics during this time period remains surprisingly under-explored. -
Electing Popes: Approval Balloting and Qualified-Majority Rule
Posted on March 12, 2013 | No CommentsThis article demonstrates that successive reforms in the rules for electing popes during the Middle Ages can be explained as a series of rational responses to political problems faced by the Church and by successive electors -
Strategy and Manipulation in Medieval Elections
Posted on March 11, 2013 | No CommentsElections in the Middle Ages were used for the same reasons that they are today: To select suitable candidate(s) for a particular office, duty, or obligation. -
Popes through the Looking Glass, or «Ceci n’est pas un pape»
Posted on March 11, 2013 | No CommentsWhat happens if, when one pope dies, instead of electing one you elect two, and these two popes then begin to fight with one another? -
Thomas Hatfield: Bishop, Soldier, and Politician
Posted on March 4, 2013 | No CommentsThomas Hatfield (c. 1310–81) rose from origins amongst the Yorkshire gentry to become a valued royal servant under King Edward III. -
Scotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsScotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII J. H. Baxter (Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University ofSt. Andrews) Scot’s Magazine (1929) Abstract In the latter half of the month of August,... -
What was the Investiture Controversy a Controversy About?
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis will aim to demonstrate that the Investiture Controversy was primarily a clash originating from fifth century ideas which were put into practice and developed by an eleventh century papacy. -
Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsI shall follow what I feel to be the methodologically sound procedure of examining one case in some detail, while at the same time producing evidence to suggest that elements which are operative in this instance may be operative in others as well. What I should like to focus attention upon are certain ideas of history which were current in the early sixteenth century.  -
The Church and sexuality in medieval Iceland
Posted on February 13, 2013 | No CommentsFrom its earliest days Christianity has attempted to control human sexuality. The letters of Paul and the writings of the Church Fathers praise the state of virginity above that of marriage, and within matrimony permit sex only for procreation. -
Picturing Gregory: The Evolving Imagery of Canon Law
Posted on February 4, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper surveys images created for the opening of the Liber extra between around 1240 and 1350, from a variety of standpoints: iconography, page layout, patrons and readers - and also suggests possible ideological agendas that might be embedded in the illustrations. -
Silence through schism and two Reformations: 451-1500
Posted on January 20, 2013 | No CommentsThe significance of the threeway split in Christianity after the Council of Chalcedon (451). The purposeful Chalcedonian forgetting of Evagrius Ponticus and the contribution of an anonymous theologian who took the name Dionysius the Areopagite. -
Jan Hus: The 15th Century Czech Reformer
Posted on January 20, 2013 | No CommentsNeil Fowler performs as Jan Hus (c.1369 – 1415) and depicts his life and teachings. -
Holding The Border: Power, Identity, And The Conversion Of Mercia
Posted on January 6, 2013 | No CommentsExamining the conversion of the kingdom of Mercia from the perspective of that kingdom’s origins and development and its rulers’ interests and concerns will enable us to understand both resistance and conversion to Christianity in seventh-century England. -
Abbo of Fleury: strategies for gaining influence and authority in tenth-century West Francia
Posted on December 17, 2012 | No CommentsThis dissertation analyzes how a tenth-century abbot, Abbo of Fleury (ca. 945 – 1004), used learnedness, church precedents, and intimations of heresy as strategies to renegotiate the bonds between powerful persons in order to increase his authority and influence within the church and kingdom of West Francia. -
Exegesis According to the Rules of Philosophy or the Rule of Faith?: Methodological Conflict in the Ninth-Century Predestination Controversy
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsThe development of biblical exegesis, as Contreni shows, was rapid, but not homogeneous. On the one hand, one of the main ways to acquire biblical wisdom was to rely on the interpretations and teaching of the Holy Fathers, whose texts were studied, assimilated, simplified, collected, and taught. On the other hand, Alcuin’s revival of the liberal arts6 paved the way for the rise of another method of biblical exegesis. -
Innocent III and England
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper begins with the dispute between England and the papacy over an election to the see of Canterbury. The beginning of the quarrel, seemed simple enough: King John’s refusal to accept Stephen Langton as archibishop of Canterbury.