This comprehensive survey of the history of the Church in Western Europe, as institution and spiritual body.

This collection of studies investigates how people of the 10th to early 12th century experienced and represented processes of intentional change in the Church, and what the consequences are of modern scholars’ reliance on ‘reform’ to describe and interpret these processes. In 11 thematic chapters it takes stock of the current state of research and offers suggestions to deepen our understanding of the ideological, institutional, and cultural dynamics at play. Contributors are Julia Barrow, Robert F. Berkhofer III, Gordon Blennemann, Katy Cubitt, Nicolangelo D'Acunto, Anne-Marie Helvétius, Ludger Körntgen, Rutger Kramer, Brigitte Meijns, Diane Reilly, Rachel Stone, and Steven Vanderputten.

A study of the chief personalities and forces that brought Western Europe to pre-eminence as a centre for political experimentation, economic expansion, and intellectual discovery.

A narrative history of the origins of Western civilization argues that Europe was transformed in the tenth century from a continent rife with violence and ignorance to a continent on the rise.

During the middle ages, belief in God was the single more important principle for every person, and the all-powerful church was the most important institution. It is impossible to understand the medieval world without understanding the religious vision of the time, and this new textbook offers an approach which explores the meaning of this in day-to-day life, as well as the theory behind it. Church and People in the Medieval West gets to the root of belief in the Middle Ages, covering topics including pastoral reform, popular religion, monasticism, heresy and much more, throughout the central middle ages from 900-1200. Suitable for undergraduate courses in medieval history, and those returning to or approaching the subject for the first time.

This is the first full-length study of the connections between the English and Continental churches during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Ortenberg draws on a wide range of liturgical, art-historical, and documentary sources to establish the strong and continuing links between England and the countries of Christian Europe. Her analysis of successive areas of contact--including not only France and Flanders, but the German lands, Italy, and even Byzantium and beyond--reveals much about the place of the English church in high medieval christendom. Ortenberg's work places the later Anglo-Saxon church exactly where it saw itself belonging: in the mainstream of Continental culture. Handsomely illustrated with numerous plates, this is a work of wide-ranging scholarship, which makes an important contribution to our understanding of medieval religious and cultural relations.