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Repeatedly denounced by bishops, local synods, national councils, and popes, simony - the buying and selling of spiritual offices - had enjoyed a centuries-old existence in the church when John Wyclif penned this treatise in the late fourteenth century. The tenth in a series of twelve treatises the English reformer wrote between 1374 and 1382, On Simony forms an integral part of the writings generally considered his summa. Basing his condemnation of simony on an idiosyncratic concept of dominion developed in earlier treatises, Wyclif argues that the church, with its spiritual message and mission, has no right to temporal power or temporal goods. Viewing simony as a form of theft, the selling...
"This book describes the roots of a set of ideals that effected a radical transformation of eleventh-century European society that led to the confrontation between church and monarchy known as the investiture struggle or Gregorian reform. Ideas cannot be divorced from reality, especially not in the Middle Ages. I present them, therefore, in their contemporary political, social, and cultural context."—from the Preface
The eleventh-century papal reform transformed western European Church and society and permanently altered the relations of Church and State in the west. The reform was inaugurated by Pope Leo IX (1048-54) and given a controversial change of direction by Pope Gregory VII (1073-85). This book contains the earliest biographies of both popes, presented here for the first time in English translation with detailed commentaries. The biographers of Leo IX were inspired by his universally acknowledged sanctity, whereas the biographers of Gregory VII wrote to defend his reputation against the hostility generated by his reforming methods and his conflict with King Henry IV. Also included is a translati...
The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the "peace of the Church" (c. 312). Some of the Roman martyrs are universally known-SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example-but others are scarcely recognized outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature, and are followed by five Appendices which present translated texts which are essential for understan...
The Gospels ofMatilda, Countess ofTuscany, is a manuscript written and illuminated in Northern Italy toward the end ofthe eleventh century. A credible fourteenth century document states that it was presented by the Countess to the Benedictine monastery of Polirone, near Mantua. In the manuscript's pictorial cycle, the Cleansing of the Temple and the scenes related to it are iconographically extra ordinary. An understanding of them must begin with a study of their ideological sources, closely related historicfigures, Medieval writers who employed the figure ofthe Cleansing ofthe Temple, and the political-social movement ofthe Patarines. Then the Matilda Gospels' illuminations will stand revea...
The essays in this volume centre upon the epoch-making papacy of Gregory VII (1073-85), and complement the author’s major study of the pope. They look at the formation and expression of Gregory’s ideas, notably in relation to simony and clerical chastity, and emphasise his religious motivation; attention is also given to the impact of his pontificate on the Anglo-Norman lands and Scandinavia. The book further includes extended discussion of the contrasting figure of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury (1070-89), and of the complex question of the interaction between him and Pope Gregory.
Exploring the history of contemporary legal thought on the rights and status of the West's colonized indigenous tribal peoples, Williams here traces the development of the themes that justified and impelled Spanish, English, and American conquests of the New World.
In the politically and militarily complex world of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean people and entities of different ethnic, religious and linguistic backgrounds came into close contact at many different levels, from everyday dealings in the marketplace to high diplomacy between competing states, thus providing scope for fertile cross-cultural interaction and permeation. This collective volume examines aspects of intercultural communication as reflected in Byzantine, Latin and Arabic documentary sources originating from or relating to the Eastern Mediterranean and ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Twenty essays examine a variety of archival sources for the Latin East, explore chancery traditions in the culturally diverse society of Frankish Cyprus, and trace modes of communication and exchange between Byzantium, Islam and the West. Contributors are: Jean Richard, David Jacoby, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Michel Balard, Peter Schreiner, Michel Balivet, Catherine Otten-Froux, Svetlana V. Bliznyuk, Brenda Bolton, Karl Borchardt, Nicholas Coureas, William O. Duba, Charalambos Gasparis, Hubert Houben, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, Johannes Pahlitzsch, and Kostis Smyrlis.