Where the Middle Ages Begin
The spread of the Cathar heresy in Western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was perceived as a real challenge to orthodoxy. The Catholic Church soon employed all means possible in a reaction against this dualistic religion, which was especially widespread in the south of France and in central and northern Italy.
The territory of what is now Czech Republic consists of essentially two lands, Bohemia and Moravia.
In 1324, Richard Ledrede, bishop of Ossory, declared that his diocese was a hotbed of devil worshippers. The central figure in this affair was Alice Kyteler, a wealthy Kilkenny woman who stood accused of witchcraft by her stepchildren.
In her article, ‘Heresy in Ireland in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, Bernadette Williams uncovers some cases where people were accused and convicted of heresy, including insulting the Virgin Mary and denying the Jesus was the son of God.
How do you accuse a sitting Pope of being a heretic?
No mention is made of any rite being followed by Bishop Wulfstan on this occasion, but services for the reconciliation of excommunication are first recorded in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
This article suggests that Italian bishops often had recourse to spiritual penalties to exercise their coercive authority over serious offences during the tenth and early eleventh centuries.
This poses a question: where did these engaged laypeople come from, and when? There is some evidence that suggests they should be pushed back to the thirteenth century.
When Western Europeans took over the island of Cyprus in 1191, did it lead to religious turmoil between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches?
It appears that Matthew only ever left England once, when, in 1248-9, he visited Norway to assist in settling a dispute at the Benedictine abbey of Nidarholm near Trondheim. It is on this episode that the following will focus.
This 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.
I argue that Bede’s involvement in ecclesiastical affairs throughout his life both illuminates and clouds his perspective on the history of the English church.
This 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.
Parishioners 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.
Actually, 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.
The 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‟.
To 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.
One 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.
By 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.
Considering 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.
This 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
Elections 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.
What 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 (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 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, five hundred years ago, a short, simple and significant ceremony took place in the papal palace on the rocky peninsula of Peñiscola, that miniature Gibraltar […]
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