Product Description: Juan de Segovia (d. 1458), theologian, translator of the Qur'an, and lifelong advocate for the forging of peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims, was one of Europe's leading intellectuals. Today, however, few scholars are familiar with this important fifteenth-century figure...read more

Product Description: Rome and Religion in the Medieval World provides a panoramic and interdisciplinary exploration of Rome and religious culture. The studies build upon or engage Thomas F.X. Noble's interest in Rome, especially his landmark contributions to the origins of the Papal States and early medieval image controversies...read more

Product Description: This book offers a general introduction to the origin and development of Christianity, from its Jewish background in the land of Israel up to its contribution to the thought and art of medieval Europe. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of the history, life and thought of the Early Church, with the evidence from the earliest written sources attesting to the manifestation in history of the Christian phenomenon, and explanations of the different expressions of thought and works in the Early Church, including its apocalyptic and messianic doctrines, liturgy and sacraments, monasticism, art and architecture...read more

The Greeks constitute one of the archetypal diasporas. This volume brings together studies of some of the major Greek communities outside the bounds of the Greek state: the United States, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Russia/Georgia and Egypt. An introductory chapter traces the emergence of the Greek diaspora in modern times and a concluding one considers questions of identity central to discussions of all diaspora communities. Globalization has highlighted the economic and political significance of diasporas. This volume affords an up-to-date analysis of the Greek presence in the modern world.

Product Description: St Peter's Basilica in Rome is arguably the most important church in Western Christendom, and is among the most significant buildings anywhere in the world. However, the church that is visible today is a youthful upstart, only four hundred years old compared to the twelve-hundred-year-old church whose site it occupies...read more

How did a community that was largely invisible in the first two centuries of its existence go on to remake the civilizations it inhabited, culturally, politically, and intellectually? Beginning with the life of Jesus, Robert Louis Wilken narrates the dramatic spread and development of Christianity over the first thousand years of its history. Moving through the formation of early institutions, practices, and beliefs to the transformations of the Roman world after the conversion of Constantine, he sheds new light on the subsequent stories of Christianity in the Latin West, the Byzantine and Slavic East, the Middle East, and Central Asia.Through a selected narration of particularly noteworthy persons and events, Wilken demonstrates how the coming of Christianity set in motion one of the most profound revolutions the world has known. This is not a story limited to the West; rather, Christian communities in Ethiopia, Nubia, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, Central Asia, India, and China shaped the course of Christian history. The rise and spread of Islam had a lasting impact on the future of Christianity, and several chapters are devoted to the early experiences of Christians under Muslim rule. Wilken reminds us that the career of Christianity is characterized by decline and attrition as well as by growth and expansion. Ten years in the making and the result of a lifetime of study, this is Robert Louis Wilken’s summa, a moving, reflective, and commanding account from a scholar at the height of his powers.

Product Description: As the pope's alter ego, the medieval papal legate was the crucial connecting link between Rome and the Christian provinces. Commissioned with varying degrees of papal authority and jurisdiction, these hand-picked representatives of the Roman Church were nothing less than the administrative, legal, and institutional embodiment of papal justice, diplomacy, government, and law during the Middle Ages...read more

Product Description: Robert the Monk's history of the First Crusade (1095-99), which was probably completed c. 1110, was in the nature of a medieval "bestseller", proving by far the most popular narrative of the crusade's events; the number of surviving manuscript copies far exceeds those of the many other accounts of the crusades written in the early decades of the twelfth century, when literary retellings of the crusaders' exploits were much in vogue...read more

Product Description: 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)...read more

Product Description: Retracing the contours of a bitter controversy over the meaning of sacred architecture that flared up among some of the leading lights of the Carolingian renaissance, Collins explores how ninth-century authors articulated the relationship of form to function and ideal to reality in the ecclesiastical architecture of the Carolingian empire...read more

Product Description: This book presents an overview of the later medieval trinitarian theology of the rival Franciscan and Dominican intellectual traditions, and includes detailed studies of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, William Ockham, and Gregory of Rimini.

Product Description: This incomparable volume presents a comprehensive exploration and explanation of medieval liturgical celebrations. The reverent prayers, hymns and rubrics used in the Middle Ages are described in detail and interpreted through the commentary of scholars from the same time period, the era which is also known as the "Age of Faith"...read more

Product Description: All participants in late medieval debates recognized Holy Scripture as the principal authority in matters of Catholic doctrine. Popes, theologians, lawyers—all were bound by the divine truth it conveyed. Yet the church possessed no absolute means of determining the final authoritative meaning of the biblical text—hence the range of appeals to antiquity, to the papacy, and to councils, none of which were ultimately conclusive...read more

Product Description: This book provides an in-depth analysis of the virtues of evangelical life according to three major Franciscan authors: Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and David of Augsburg. It is the first to offer a historical and source-based treatment of early Franciscan virtue discourse, by answering the following questions: How do the authors describe and prescribe the essential virtues for the life in the footsteps of Jesus Christ? How are the spiritual virtues acquired or lost? How do the development and application of these virtues shape "perfect" individuals as well as the "good" of the community? This work is a valuable contribution to our understanding of how the virtues functioned as central, organizing elements in early Franciscan literature and instruction...read more

Product Description: "Conceptually well organized, stylistically clear, intellectually thoughtful, and pedagogically useful." - Thomas Head, Speculum "For its humane and learned approach to its enormous canvas, as well as for the cogency with which it penetrates at speed to the essentials of a vanished historical epoch, this History of the Church in the Middle Ages deserves a very wide audience indeed...read more

Product Description: This work represents a novel treatment of the mission of the Church fathers, the early Christian ascetics, and their disciples during the turbulent centuries that followed the passing of the apostles. Approaching a normally arcane subject largely through the interplay of character and incident, Outreach and Renewal provides a stirring account of the various ways in which spiritual leaders of the time promoted the Gospel message...read more

Product Description: Armenian mediaeval historians, who have concentrated primarily on political high points, have tended to dismiss the more than four centuries dividing the two royal epochs of the Arsacids (ending, A.D. 428) and the Bagratids (inaugurated with the coronation of Ashot I, A...read more