"In The Laity in the Middle Ages Andre Vauchez explores the contribution of the laity to medieval religious life between 1050 and 1450 Each essay offers a vivid introduction to some aspect of the lay
Pilgrimage inspired and shaped the distinct experiences of commoners and nobles, men and women, clergy and laity for over a thousand years. Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader is a rich collection
Many more documents survive from the early Middle Ages than from the Roman Empire. Although ecclesiastical archives may account for the dramatic increase in the number of surviving documents, this new investigation reveals the scale and spread of documentary culture beyond the Church. The contributors explore the nature of the surviving documentation without preconceptions to show that we cannot infer changing documentary practices from patterns of survival. Throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages - from North Africa, Egypt, Italy, Francia and Spain to Anglo-Saxon England - people at all social levels, whether laity or clergy, landowners or tenants, farmers or royal functionaries, needed, used and kept documents. The story of documentary culture in the early medieval world emerges not as one of its capture by the Church, but rather of a response adopted by those who needed documents, as they reacted to a changing legal, social and institutional landscape.
The relationships between monastic and mendicant communities or orders and the laity in the high middle ages were complex, highly charged, and yet nearly ritualized. These 19 papers explore the comple
The book of hours is said to have been the most popular book owned by the laity in the later Middle Ages. Women were often patrons or owners of such books, which were usually illustrated: indeed, the
Beginning in the twelfth century, clergy and laity alike started wondering with intensity about the historical and developmental details of Jesus' early life. Was the Christ Child like other children,
Life in the Middle Ages will appeal to readers who want to get behind the generalizations of historians by reference to the raw material. This collection of documents covers a wide field. The topics range form clergy and laity, saints and sinners, to love, battles, pageants and some details of everyday life. The extracts are drawn from documentary material in six languages and the majority were translated for this collection; they represent thirty years' study among all kinds of medieval writings and have been chosen as specially representative of the period. The full collection is now published in two parts. The first encompasses 'Religion, Folklore and Superstition', and 'Chronicles, Science and Art', and the second, 'Men and Manners', and 'Monks, Friars and Nuns'.
This book, first published in 2000, is a pioneering study of politics and society in the early Middle Ages. Whereas it is widely believed that the source materials for early medieval Europe are too sparse to allow sustained study of the workings of social and political relationships on the ground, this book focuses on a uniquely well-documented area to investigate the basis of power. Topics covered include the foundation of monasteries, their relationship with the laity, and their role as social centres; the significance of urbanism; the control of land, the development of property rights and the organization of states; community, kinship and lordship; justice and dispute settlement; the uses of the written word; violence and the feud; and the development of political structures from the Roman empire to the high Middle Ages.
J. R. H. Moorman was one of the foremost Anglican scholars of the English church in the middle ages, and especially of the Franciscan order. First published in 1945, Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century provides a social history of the medieval English church. Two per cent of the population were then in religious orders of some kind, and church authority was at least as powerful as that of the state for the rest of the population. In the first part of the book, Moorman uses original sources to give a picture of the life of the secular clergy, their organisation, finances, training, and the different roles they filled with regard to the laity. The second part concentrates on the monastic orders, arguing that, with the exception of the friars, the great days of the monasteries were over, and that they had entered a period of consolidation and inevitable decline.
The parish was the lowest level of hierarchy in the medieval church and it was the shared responsibility of the laity and the clergy. Most Christians were baptized, went to confession, were married, a
During the early middle ages, Europe developed complex and varied Christian cultures, and from about 1100 secular rulers, competing factions and inspired individuals continued to engender a diverse and ever-changing mix within Christian society. This volume explores the wide range of institutions, practices and experiences associated with the life of European Christians in the later middle ages. The clergy of this period initiated new approaches to the role of priests, bishops and popes, and developed an ambitious project to instruct the laity. For lay people, the practices of parish religion were central, but many sought additional ways to enrich their lives as Christians. Impulses towards reform and renewal periodically swept across Europe, led by charismatic preachers and supported by secular rulers. This book provides accessible accounts of these complex historical processes and entices the reader towards further enquiry.
Compilation and miscellany manuscripts were widely owned in the late middle ages, by both the laity and the clergy. Here, their possible influence on Julian of Norwich's Revelations is explored. The
The eleventh and early twelfth centuries were a period of intense debate over ecclesiastical reform in western Europe. This book examines the debates from a new perspective, exploring the ways in which contemporary political writers conveyed messages about 'public' life through textual and sometimes visual images of the 'private' life of the Church. It argues that the images they used - of bishops as husbands of their sees, of the laity as the sons of Mother Church, and of the pope as father of bishops - were shaped not only by intellectual and ritual traditions, but also by contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender. Megan McLaughlin reveals that the boundaries between the 'public' and the 'private' were extremely fluid in the central Middle Ages - because of both the realities of political life in that period and the changing nature of life within European households.
The eleventh and early twelfth centuries were a period of intense debate over ecclesiastical reform in western Europe. This book examines the debates from a new perspective, exploring the ways in which contemporary political writers conveyed messages about 'public' life through textual and sometimes visual images of the 'private' life of the Church. It argues that the images they used - of bishops as husbands of their sees, of the laity as the sons of Mother Church, and of the pope as father of bishops - were shaped not only by intellectual and ritual traditions, but also by contemporary ideas about sexuality and gender. Megan McLaughlin reveals that the boundaries between the 'public' and the 'private' were extremely fluid in the central Middle Ages - because of both the realities of political life in that period and the changing nature of life within European households.
In early fifteenth-century Prague, disagreements about religion came to be shouted in the streets and taught to the laity in the vernacular, giving rise to a new kind of public engagement that would p
