Originally published in 1925. The detailed contents also deal with both the social and personal aspects of church history. Contents include: Gregory the Great - The Secular and Monastic Clergy 600-750 - The Missionaries - The Carolingian Renaissance - Relations of Eastern and Western Churches - Growth of Papal Power - The Crusades - Twelfth Century Monasticism - Canon Law - The Friars - Scholastic Philosophy - Avignon Popes - Fourteenth Century Diocese and Parish in England - Medieval Heresy - The Conciliar Movement - Etc. Plus two maps. Many of the earliest books on religion, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The Church was the central institution of the European Middle Ages, and the foundation of medieval life. Professor Lynch's admirable survey (concentrating on the western church, and emphasising ideas and trends over personalities) meets a long-felt need for a single-volume comprehensive history, designed for students and non-specialists.

An engaging, richly illustrated account of parish churches and churchgoers in England, from the Anglo-Saxons to the mid-sixteenth century Parish churches were at the heart of English religious and social life in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. In this comprehensive study, Nicholas Orme shows how they came into existence, who staffed them, and how their buildings were used. He explains who went to church, who did not attend, how people behaved there, and how they--not merely the clergy--affected how worship was staged. The book provides an accessible account of what happened in the daily and weekly services, and how churches marked the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Easter, and summer. It describes how they celebrated the great events of life: birth, coming of age, and marriage, and gave comfort in sickness and death. A final chapter covers the English Reformation in the sixteenth century and shows how, alongside its changes, much that went on in parish churches remained as before.

Without meaning to be irreverent, it is fair to say that in the Middle Ages, at the height of its political and economic power, the Roman Catholic Church functioned in part as a powerful and sophisticated corporation. The Church dealt in a "product" many consumers felt they had to have: the salvation of their immortal souls. The Pope served as its CEO, the College of Cardinals as its board of directors, bishoprics and monasteries as its franchises. And while the Church certainly had moral and social goals, this early antecedent to AT&T and General Motors had economic motives and methods as well, seeking to maximize profits by eliminating competitors and extending its markets. In Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm, five highly respected economists advance the controversial argument that the story of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is in large part a story of supply and demand. Without denying the centrality--or sincerity--of religious motives, the authors employ the tools of modern economics to analyze how the Church's objectives went well beyond the realm of the spiritual. They explore the myriad sources of the Church's wealth, including tithes and land rents, donations and bequests, judicial services and monastic agricultural production. And they present an in-depth look at the ways in which Church principles on marriage, usury, and crusade were revised as necessary to meet--and in many ways to create--the needs of a vast body of consumers. Along the way, the book raises and answers many intriguing questions. The authors explore the reasons behind the great crusades against the Moslems, probing beyond motives of pure idealism to highlight the Church's concern with revenues from tourism and the sale of relics threatened by Moslem encroachment in the holy lands. They examine the Church's involvement in the marriage market, revealing how the clergy filled their coffers by extracting fees for blessing or dissolving marital unions, for hearing marital disputes, and even for granting permission for blood relatives to wed. And they shed light on the concept of purgatory, showing how this "product innovation" developed by the Church in the twelfth century--a form of "deferred payment"--opened the floodgates for a fresh market in post-mortem atonement through payments on behalf of the deceased. Finally, the authors show how the cumulative costs that the faithful were asked to bear eventually priced the Roman Catholic church out of the market, paving the way for Protestant reformers like Martin Luther. A ground-breaking look at the growth and decline of the medieval Church, Sacred Trust demonstrates how economic reasoning can be used to cast light on the behavior of any complex historical institution. It offers rare insight into one of the great historical powers of Western civilization, in a analysis that will intrigue anyone interested in life in the Middle Ages, in church history, or in the influence of economic motives on historical events.

"Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church" analyses the Christian assumptions about sexuality, chronicles the early institutionalisation of these assumptions, and explores the theological debate of the meaning of marriage and the role of sex in marriage. The theological conception of sex, including issues such as rape, seduction, impotence, and prostitution, is then examined as it came to be developed by canon lawyers and justified by medical and scientific writers. The book concludes with an overview of late medieval sex practices as seen in the literature of the period and in demographic studies.Professor Vern Bullough, the well-known researcher in human sexuality, and Professor James Brundage, a historian of the Medieval period, have combined their scholarly talents to develop an in-depth analysis of sexual attitudes and practices during the Middle Ages. Skilfully blending readability and scholarly thoroughness, this is a volume general readers as well as professionals recognise as a major contribution to the study of medieval sexuality.

This volume seeks to address the needs of teachers and advanced students who are preparing classes on the Middle Ages or who find themselves confounded in their studies by reference to the various liturgies that were fundamental to the lives of medieval peoples. In a series of essays, scholars of the liturgy examine The Shape of the Liturgical Year, Particular Liturgies, The Physical Setting of the Liturgy, The Liturgy and Books, and Liturgy and the Arts. A concluding essay, which originated in notes left behind by the late C. Clifford Flanigan, seeks to open the field, to examine liturgy within the larger and more inclusive category of ritual. The essays are intended to be introductory but to provide the basic facts and the essential bibliography for further study. They approach particular problems assuming a knowledge of medieval Europe but little expertise in liturgical studies per se.

The Church was the central institution of the European Middle Ages, and the foundation of medieval life. Professor Lynch's admirable survey (concentrating on the western church, and emphasising ideas and trends over personalities) meets a long-felt need for a single-volume comprehensive history, designed for students and non-specialists.