Bücher der Reihe Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West

St Katherine of Alexandria was one of the most popular saints in both the Orthodox and Latin Churches in the later Middle Ages. This book provides an examination of the way how her cult spread from the Greek-speaking lands of the Eastern Mediterranean and into Western Europe.

Investigates the chantries and their impacts on the life, services and clerical community of the cathedral, from their foundation in the early thirteenth century to the dissolution. This book demonstrates the flexibility and adaptability of these pious foundations and the various contributions they made to medieval society.

Since the time of Francis of Assisi, a commitment to voluntary poverty has been a controversial aspect of religious life. This volume explores the interaction between poverty and religious devotion in the mendicant orders between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries as reformers within the Church sought new ways of encouraging identification with Christ. Drawing on history, literature and visual arts, it explores how the orders continued to transform religious life into the time of the renaissance, and considers the paradoxical tension between voluntary poverty as a way of emulating Christ and involuntary poverty as situation demanding a response from those with the means to help the poor.

Bishops were central figures in medieval society and the circumstances of their appointments are of great historical importance. This book considers the theory and practice of free canonical election in its heyday under Henry III and Edward I, and the nature of and reasons for the subsequent transition to papal provision.

Providing a systematic study of the stages in the life, miracles and posthumous cult of Peter of Verona, this book deals with the controversial issues of his life and explores the cult of Peter Martyr. It is useful to students of papal canonization, the Dominican order, the Inquisition, hagiography, and local history.

Addresses issues relating to the compilation and transmission of canon law collections, the role of bishops in their dissemination, as well as the interpretation and use of law in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Explores the changing perception of the miracle in medieval western society. This book employs several sources, including canonization dossiers, hagiographical texts, theological treatises and sermons, to examine the Christian church's desire to create a sounder legal definition of the miracle.

Looks at art in the formative period of the Augustinian Hermits, an order with a particularly difficult relation to art. This book discusses both well-known and neglected artworks, engaging with fundamental methodological questions for pre-modern art and church history, from the creation of religious iconographies to the role of gender in art.

Focuses on the paradox of motherhood in the European Middle Ages. This book analyses the powers and the dangers of motherhood within the warp and weft of social history, beginning with the premise that religious discourse or practice served as a medium in which mothers (and others) could assess their situation, defend claims, and make accusations.

Reflecting the focus but also range of their honorand's work in medieval canon law in the era before Gratian, this volume includes essays which explore the creation and transmission of canonical texts and the motives of their compilers.

Discusses issues such as episcopal (self-)representation, conceptualization of office and authority, cultural production (images, texts, material objects, space) and ecclesiology/ideology. This book contends that ideas about episcopal office and conduct were conditioned by and contingent upon time, place, and pastoral constituency.

Concerns social and religious life in the city of Toulouse during the period 1150 - 1250 AD. This book reveals how religious orders managed an insurance network providing pensions, old age care and burial for lay society. The chapters on hospitals, charities, entertainers, judges, heretics and usurers bring the daily life of the period to life.

Dating from the fourth century AD, the prophecy of the 'Sibylla Tiburtina' was one of medieval Europe's most widely disseminated Latin eschatological prophecies. This study addresses the variety of non-political interests and concerns which medieval readers brought to the prophecy.

Contains papers by a number of students of Robert Louis Benson that deal with matters central to Benson's historical interests - ecclesiastical institutions and administration, emperorship and papacy, canon law, political ideology, and historiography. This book aims to contribute to the study of the Middle Ages.

Hugh of Amiens (c 1085-1164) was an important intellectual figure in the twelfth century. This book examines all of Hugh's writings to uncover a better understanding not only of this individual, but also of the twelfth-century as a whole, especially the theological preoccupations of the period.

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. This book considers how northern European cultures (in particular, the Irish and English) imagined and imitated the city as they understood it.

Presents a study of Burchard's "Decretum", a popular book of Catholic canon law compiled just after the year 1000. This book provides a window into the development of legal and theological reasoning in the medieval West, and suggests that the flowering of law and theology began far earlier, and for different reasons, than scholars had supposed.

Alexander III was one of the most important popes of the Middle Ages. His papacy (1159-81) marked a significant watershed in the history of the Western Church and Society. Alexander made many contributions to the law of the Church that had a major impact on Western society, notably on marriage. This title presents a reassessment of his papacy.

Building on recent revisionist histories of the quality and ability of the late medieval clergy, this is a comprehensive survey of the ordinations of priests at the Roman curia during the pontificates of Pius II (1458-1464) and Paul II (1464-1471).