History of religion Books

Book SynopsisThe First Council of Ephesus (431) was the climax of the so-called Nestorian Controversy. Convoked by the emperor Theodosius II to restore peace to the Church, it immediately divided into two rival councils, both meeting at Ephesus. Attempts by the emperor’s representatives to get the bishops on both sides to meet together had no success, and after four months the council was dissolved without having ever properly met. But a number of decrees by the larger of the two rival councils, in particular the condemnation of Nestorius of Constantinople, were subsequently accepted as the valid decrees of the ‘ecumenical council of Ephesus’. The documentation, consisting of conciliar proceedings, letters and other documents, provides information not only about events in Ephesus itself, but also about lobbying and public demonstrations in Constantinople. There is no episode in late Roman history where we are so well informed about how politics were conducted in the imperial capital. This makes the Acts a document of first importance for the history of the Later Roman Empire as well for that of the Church.Trade Review‘Richard Price [has made] translated texts for historians... available to a wider scholarly public... In this way, future research will have much easier access to difficult complex of traditions.’ Wolfram Kinzig, Plekos (translated from German)‘[S]ophisticated and nuanced historical narrative... an extraordinary contribution to scholarship on the council and on the development of fifth-century theology and ecclesiastical politics.’ Nathan Porter, Vigiliae ChristianaeTable of ContentsGeneral IntroductionI. The Sources II. The ‘Nestorian Controversy’ and the First Council of Ephesus: a brief historyIII. The TheologyDocuments and Proceedings1. Before the Council [Eph 1]2. The Session of 22 June [Eph 2]3. After the Session of 22 June [Eph 3]4. The ‘Session’ of 22 July [Eph 4] 5. From the end of July till Nestorius’ retirement [Eph 5]6. From the Colloquia at Chalcedon to the Dissolution of the Council [Eph 6]Appendices I. Attendance at the CouncilII. From the Coptic ActsGlossaryBibliography MapsIndices

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Book SynopsisGregory Palamas, a monk of Mount Athos and metropolitan of Thessalonike from 1347 to 1357, was a leading fourteenth-century Byzantine intellectual. He was the chief spokesman for the hesychasts in the controversy bearing that name, which began when a charge of heresy was laid against him in 1340 and ended with his proclamation as a saint in 1368. Although excellent English translations of some of Palamas’ theological writings are available, very few texts relating to his historical role have yet been translated. This book contains the first English translation of the contemporary Life of Palamas by Philotheos Kokkinos, which is our principal source of biographical information on him. Also translated into English for the first time are the Synodal Tomoi from 1341 to 1368, which chart the progress of the hesychast controversy from the viewpoint of the victors, together with the corpus of material relating to Palamas’ year of captivity among the Turks, which offers a unique insight into conditions for Christians and Muslims in the early Ottoman emirate. The translations, all of which are based on critical texts, are preceded by introductions which set Palamas in his historical context and propose some changes to the conventional chronology of his life. Trade Review'Norman Russell, a renowned scholar of patristic, Byzantine, and modern Greek theology, must be thanked for his enormous contribution in Gregory Palamas: The Hesychast Controversy and the Debate with Islam... For anyone who is interested in the figure of St. Gregory Palamas and the ecclesiastical events of the middle Palaiologan period, this is an essential volume to own.'The Pappas Patristic Institute ‘This very careful work, endowed with clear translations, well introduced and annotated... will render the greatest service both to researchers and to students’ Marie-Hélène Blanchet, Revue des Études Byzantines (translated from French)Table of ContentsGeneral Introduction1. Byzantium in the Mid-Fourteenth Century2. The Hesychast Controversy3. The Main Characteristics of Palamite Theology4. Palamas in Captivity among the Turks5. A Contested Saint6. The Reception of Palamas7. Texts and EditionsI. The Life of Gregory Palamas by Philotheos KokkinosII. The Synodal Tomos of 1341III. Letters from Prison in Constantinople1. To John Gabras2. To Philotheos 3. To Bessarion4. To the Empress AnnaIV. The Synodal Tomos of 1347 and Related Documents1. The Synodal Tomos of February 13472. The Prostagma of John VI Kantakouzenos of March 13473. The Anti-Palamite Tomos of July 1347V. The Synodal Tomos of 1351VI. Palamas in Captivity among the Turks1. Letter to his Church2. The Debate with the Chionai3. Letter to an Unknown RecipientVII. The Synodal Tomos of 1368GlossaryBibliographyIndexes

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Book SynopsisThis book reconceives the rewriting of Byzantine hagiography between the eighth and fourteenth centuries as a skilful initiative in communication and creative freedom, and as a form of authorship. Three men – Makarios (late C13th-C14th), a monk; Constantine Akropolites (d.c.1324), a statesman; and an Anonymous educated wordsmith (c. C9th) – each opted to rewrite the martyrdom of a female virgin saint who suffered and died centuries earlier. Their adaptations, respectively, were of St. Ia of Persia (modern-day Iran), St. Horaiozele of Constantinople, and St. Tatiana of Rome. Ia is described as a victim of the persecutions of the Persian Shahanshah, Shapur II (309–79 C.E), Horaiozele was allegedly a disciple of St Andrew and killed anachronistically under the emperor Decius (249–51 C.E), and Tatiana, we are told, was a deaconess, martyred during the reign of emperor Alexander Severus (222–35 C.E). Makarios, Akropolites, and the Anonymous knowingly tailored their compositions to influence an audience and to foster their individual interests. The implications arising from these studies are far-reaching: this monograph considers the agency of the hagiographer, the instrumental use of the authorial persona and its impact on the audience, and hagiography as a layered discourse. The book also provides the first translations and commentaries of the martyrdoms of these virgin martyrs.Trade Review'The three texts are translated into clear English, which is pleasant to read. The notes shed light on several aspects of the stories, notably their lexical richness. Alwis brings three female figures from Byzantine hagiography out of oblivion while creating an original discussion about re-writing not only as a linguistic and rhetorical practice but also a social one. This is a fine study about hagiography as a literary object, drawing on the ancestral strength of story/ narrative as a means of communication.’ Anna Lampadaridi, Revue des Études ByzantinesTranslated from French. 'As first-time translations to English, these texts, and the monograph that introduces them, are valuable additions to the extant research, and provide new insight and perspectives for anyone interested in mediaeval history and hagiography.' Sissel Undheim, Plekos‘[Narrating Martyrdom] is a welcome addition to the growing number of Greek hagiographical texts available in English… and offers valuable insights into the three authors’ techniques of rewriting their model texts.’ Alice-Mary Talbot, Church HistoryTable of Contents1. A Note on the Editions and Translations2. IntroductionNarratology, Focalisation, and CommunicationThe Rewritten Text: the SimulacrumManuscript Context and AudienceRewriting as Social Action, and Hagiography as Double-DiscourseRewriting Perceptions from the Past3. The Authors: Makarios, Constantine Akropolites, and the Anonymous4. The Virgin Martyrs5. AdaptationMakarios and Saint IaAkropolites and Saint HoraiozeleThe Anonymous and Saint TatianaWhat is Metaphrasis?6. Conclusions7. Translations and Commentaries for each martyrdom

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Book SynopsisThis book brings together new research on loyalism in the 26 counties that would become the Irish Free State. It covers a range of topics and experiences, including the Third Home Rule crisis in 1912, the revolutionary period, partition, independence and Irish participation in the British armed and colonial service up to the declaration of the Republic in 1949. The essays gathered here examine who southern Irish loyalists were, what loyalism meant to them, how they expressed their loyalism, their responses to Irish independence and their experiences afterwards. The collection offers fresh insights and new perspectives on the Irish Revolution and the early years of southern independence, based on original archival research. It addresses issues of particular historiographical and political interest during the ongoing ‘Decade of Centenaries’, including revolutionary violence, sectarianism, political allegiance and identity and the Irish border, but, rather than ceasing its coverage in 1922 or 1923, this book – like the lives with which it is concerned – continues into the first decades of southern Irish independence. List of contributors: Frank Barry, Elaine Callinan, Jonathan Cherry, Seamus Cullen, Ian d'Alton, Sean Gannon, Katherine Magee, Alan McCarthy, Pat McCarthy, Daniel Purcell, Joseph Quinn, Brian M. Walker, Fionnuala Walsh, Donald Wood Trade Review'The chapters in this volume provide a variety of insights into the southern Irish loyalist experience in the early years of the new state... In addition to being of interest to scholars of Irish Unionism and Protestantism, this book will be of use to those interested in local politics, social upheaval during the revolution, and Irish service in the military and imperial civil service.' Nicola K. Morris, Journal of British Studies‘This is a carefully conceived volume which succeeds in its intent to explore the many faces of loyalism within twenty-six counties Irish society in the period. It has done a lot of service to expanding the historical record on political allegiance between 1912 and 1949.’ Ida Milne, A Church of Ireland JournalTable of ContentsSouthern Irish loyalism from Home Rule crisis to Republic: an introductionBrian Hughes and Conor MorrisseyCrisis and Decline? Protestants and Unionists in Revolution1. Protestant population decline in southern Ireland, 1911–26Donald Wood2. Voting to maintain the Union in 1918: ‘the strongest pillars upon which they stood’Elaine Callinan3. Southern Protestant voices during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War: reports from Church of Ireland synodsBrian M. Walker4. The southern unionist business community and the economics of Home Rule and successionFrank BarryServants of the Crown5. Loyal to what? Identity and motivation in the southern Irish Protestant involvement in two world warsIan d’Alton6. ‘The future welfare of the Empire will depend more largely on our women and girls’: southern loyalist women and the British war effort in Ireland, 1914–1922Fionnuala Walsh7. Southern Irish loyalists and imperial serviceSéan Gannon8. ‘It was the done thing’: southern Irish Protestants and the Second World WarJoseph QuinnThe Provincial Experience 9. Henry Lawrence Tivy (1848–1929): the rise and fall of a Cork loyalistAlan McCarthy10. A beleaguered community? Waterford loyalists during the revolution, 1912–1924Pat McCarthy11. Loyalists in a garrison county: Kildare, 1912–1923Seamus CullenLost Counties? Loyalism at the Border12. ‘Cast Out!’ Cavan and Monaghan loyalists and partition, 1916–1923Daniel Purcell13. Adaptive coexistence? Lord Farnham (1879–1957) and southern loyalism in pre- and post-Independence IrelandJonathan Cherry14. Defying the partition of Ulster: Colonel John George Vaughan Hart and the unionist experience of the Irish Revolution in East Donegal, c.1919–1944Katherine MageeAfterword: layers of loyaltyBrian Hughes and Conor Morrissey

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Book SynopsisThese canons (or rules) for church organization and life and Christian morals issued at a council held in Constantinople in 691/2 form the foundation of Byzantine Canon Law. They show an intense concern to restore the proper discipline of clerical life after the chaos brought about by the Arab invasions. The rules for the laity show a concern to secure obedience to the Church’s rules about marriage, proper respect for sacred space, and the suppression of customs of pagan origin. Particular interest attaches to the canons that express disapproval of certain customs of the Western Church and of the Armenian Church. Was this an attempt to impose Byzantine hegemony, or simply a revulsion at customs that seemed wrong? The Byzantine emperor tried repeatedly to get the Pope to give the new canons the stamp of his approval; his failure marks an important stage in the mounting divergence between the Greek and the Roman Churches. The translation is accompanied by full annotation, while the introduction sets the council in its historical context, in both the history of the early medieval world and the development of Eastern Canon Law.Table of ContentsPreface Abbreviations Introduction 1. The Council and its Setting 2. Eastern Canon Law and the Quinisext Council 3. The Message of the Canons 4. Justinian II and Armenia 5.The Roman Reaction 6. Later Reception in East and West 7. Manuscripts and Editions Date List of Canons, AD 314-870 The Headings of the Quinisext Canons List of the Quinisext Canons in Thematic Sequence The Conciliar Acts: Translation and Commentary The Address to the Emperor The Canons The Subscriptions Bibliography Maps Indices 1. Texts cited in the Acts 2. The Introduction

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Book SynopsisThese canons (or rules) for church organization and life and Christian morals issued at a council held in Constantinople in 691/2 form the foundation of Byzantine Canon Law. They show an intense concern to restore the proper discipline of clerical life after the chaos brought about by the Arab invasions. The rules for the laity show a concern to secure obedience to the Church’s rules about marriage, proper respect for sacred space, and the suppression of customs of pagan origin. Particular interest attaches to the canons that express disapproval of certain customs of the Western Church and of the Armenian Church. Was this an attempt to impose Byzantine hegemony, or simply a revulsion at customs that seemed wrong? The Byzantine emperor tried repeatedly to get the Pope to give the new canons the stamp of his approval; his failure marks an important stage in the mounting divergence between the Greek and the Roman Churches. The translation is accompanied by full annotation, while the introduction sets the council in its historical context, in both the history of the early medieval world and the development of Eastern Canon Law.Table of ContentsPreface Abbreviations Introduction 1. The Council and its Setting 2. Eastern Canon Law and the Quinisext Council 3. The Message of the Canons 4. Justinian II and Armenia 5.The Roman Reaction 6. Later Reception in East and West 7. Manuscripts and Editions Date List of Canons, AD 314-870 The Headings of the Quinisext Canons List of the Quinisext Canons in Thematic Sequence The Conciliar Acts: Translation and Commentary The Address to the Emperor The Canons The Subscriptions Bibliography Maps Indices 1. Texts cited in the Acts 2. The Introduction

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Book SynopsisFor almost 400 years, Roman Catholics have been writing about the English Reformation, but their contributions have been largely ignored by the scholarly world and the reading public. Thus the myths of corrupt monasteries, a 'Bloody' Mary, and a 'Good' Queen Bess have established themselves in the popular mind. John Vidmar re-examines this literature systematically from the time of the Reformation itself, to the early 1950s, when Philip Hughes produced his monumental Reformation in England.Trade Review"In English Catholic Historians and the English Reformation, 1585-1954, Father John Vidman, O.P. puts Catholic writers back into the debate on the nature of the Reformation in England. His book shines a spotlight on the central issue of the papacys claim to spiritual authority, from the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, to the controversies surrounding Catholic Emancipation, to the twentieth centurys Aidan Gasquet, Hilaire Belloc and Philip Hughes. In tracing important changes to the practice of writing history, Father Vidmar shows that the best historians over the centuries have usually collected the best documents." -- Susan Wabuda, Fordham UniversityTable of ContentsContents: Introduction; Exiles and Appellants; The Quest for Catholic Emancipation; John Lingard and the Cause of Catholicism; The Jesuits and Mark Tierney; The Restoration of the Middle Ages and Monasticism; Archbishop Cranmer and the Anglican Liturgy; The Church of England and the Papacy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis book brings together new research on loyalism in the 26 counties that would become the Irish Free State. It covers a range of topics and experiences, including the Third Home Rule crisis in 1912, the revolutionary period, partition, independence and Irish participation in the British armed and colonial service up to the declaration of the Republic in 1949. The essays gathered here examine who southern Irish loyalists were, what loyalism meant to them, how they expressed their loyalism, their responses to Irish independence and their experiences afterwards. The collection offers fresh insights and new perspectives on the Irish Revolution and the early years of southern independence, based on original archival research. It addresses issues of particular historiographical and political interest during the ongoing ‘Decade of Centenaries’, including revolutionary violence, sectarianism, political allegiance and identity and the Irish border, but, rather than ceasing its coverage in 1922 or 1923, this book – like the lives with which it is concerned – continues into the first decades of southern Irish independence. List of contributors: Frank Barry, Elaine Callinan, Jonathan Cherry, Seamus Cullen, Ian d'Alton, Sean Gannon, Katherine Magee, Alan McCarthy, Pat McCarthy, Daniel Purcell, Joseph Quinn, Brian M. Walker, Fionnuala Walsh, Donald Wood Trade Review'The chapters in this volume provide a variety of insights into the southern Irish loyalist experience in the early years of the new state... In addition to being of interest to scholars of Irish Unionism and Protestantism, this book will be of use to those interested in local politics, social upheaval during the revolution, and Irish service in the military and imperial civil service.' Nicola K. Morris, Journal of British Studies‘This is a carefully conceived volume which succeeds in its intent to explore the many faces of loyalism within twenty-six counties Irish society in the period. It has done a lot of service to expanding the historical record on political allegiance between 1912 and 1949.’ Ida Milne, A Church of Ireland JournalTable of ContentsSouthern Irish loyalism from Home Rule crisis to Republic: an introductionBrian Hughes and Conor MorrisseyCrisis and Decline? Protestants and Unionists in Revolution1. Protestant population decline in southern Ireland, 1911–26Donald Wood2. Voting to maintain the Union in 1918: ‘the strongest pillars upon which they stood’Elaine Callinan3. Southern Protestant voices during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War: reports from Church of Ireland synodsBrian M. Walker4. The southern unionist business community and the economics of Home Rule and successionFrank BarryServants of the Crown5. Loyal to what? Identity and motivation in the southern Irish Protestant involvement in two world warsIan d’Alton6. ‘The future welfare of the Empire will depend more largely on our women and girls’: southern loyalist women and the British war effort in Ireland, 1914–1922Fionnuala Walsh7. Southern Irish loyalists and imperial serviceSéan Gannon8. ‘It was the done thing’: southern Irish Protestants and the Second World WarJoseph QuinnThe Provincial Experience 9. Henry Lawrence Tivy (1848–1929): the rise and fall of a Cork loyalistAlan McCarthy10. A beleaguered community? Waterford loyalists during the revolution, 1912–1924Pat McCarthy11. Loyalists in a garrison county: Kildare, 1912–1923Seamus CullenLost Counties? Loyalism at the Border12. ‘Cast Out!’ Cavan and Monaghan loyalists and partition, 1916–1923Daniel Purcell13. Adaptive coexistence? Lord Farnham (1879–1957) and southern loyalism in pre- and post-Independence IrelandJonathan Cherry14. Defying the partition of Ulster: Colonel John George Vaughan Hart and the unionist experience of the Irish Revolution in East Donegal, c.1919–1944Katherine MageeAfterword: layers of loyaltyBrian Hughes and Conor Morrissey

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Book SynopsisThe Boke of Gostely Grace is the anonymous Middle English version of the Liber specialis gratiae by the German visionary Mechthild of Hackeborn (1241–1298). The original Liber, compiled at the convent of Helfta in Saxony, presents Mechthild’s visions as she experienced them in the liturgy of the Christian year. Her famous visions of the Sacred Heart follow, along with instructions on the religious life in community and her visions of the afterlife. The Middle English version adapts the text to a new fifteenth-century audience, probably a Birgittine community such as the newly founded Syon Abbey on the Thames near London; it emphasises imagery of the dance of the liturgy, the vineyard and the Sacred Heart in new and vivid terms, while other aspects, such as the bridal imagery, are played down. Within a generation, the English text had become popular among the nobility, and stimulated lay piety and private prayer. While scholars have traced the influence and reception of many continental European women writers, Mechthild’s revelations have often escaped their attention, through the lack of suitable editions. This edition of Bodley 220, the manuscript written in the London area, includes introduction, commentary and glossary, and breaks new ground in the study of late medieval vernacular translation and women’s literary culture.

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Book SynopsisIn 1234, four mendicant friars arrived in the Byzantine city of Nicaea to discuss the possibility of a union between the Greek and Roman Churches. The controversy over the specific differences in both doctrine and practice had taken on a new urgency in the thirteenth century. The Fourth Crusade in 1204 placed the Byzantine capital of Constantinople under Latin control, creating an atmosphere of nearly continuous conflict, and yet the two sides agreed to meet in hopes of a peaceful settlement. Presented in translation for the first time, the report of those friars describing the discussions, or disputatio, of 1234 illuminates the full spectrum of motivations and implications surrounding the prospect of church union in the years following the Fourth Crusade. The letters exchanged by Pope Gregory IX and Patriarch Germanos II demonstrate the terms under which both sides entered the negotiations with a notable degree of optimism. Brought together, these sources represent the largest collection of material describing any dialogue between the churches in the thirteenth century. Translation and analysis of these sources call into question the long-held view that attempts to end the schism of the churches were perpetually doomed to fail.Trade Review‘This monograph is handsomely produced, and its subject matter will appeal to students of ecumenical dialogue between the Greek and the Latin worlds in the early 1230s, bringing readers up-to-date with research in the last century. The volume will also interest historians of the Dominicans and Franciscans, whom Gregory IX and his successors increasingly appointed as messengers.’ Michael Robson, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum

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Book SynopsisThe Council of Constantinople of 869-70 was highly dramatic, with its trial and condemnation of Patriarch Photius, a towering figure in the Byzantium of his day, and the tussle of wills at the council between the papal legates, the imperial representatives and the bishops. It was church politics and personalities rather than issues of doctrine, such as icon veneration, that dominated the debates. Out of all the acts of the great early councils, the acts of this council, of which this edition is the first modern translation, are the nearest to an accurate and complete record. Its protest against secular interference in ecclesiastical elections was taken up later in the West and led to this council’s being accorded full ecumenical status, although it had been repudiated in Byzantium soon after it was held. No early council expresses so vividly the tension between Rome’s claim to supreme authority and the Byzantine reduction of this to a primacy of honour.

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Book SynopsisRobert Holcot (d. 1349) was a Dominican friar, most prominently connected with the convent in Oxford where he became a Doctor of Theology. Holcot is perhaps most famous today, following an important discussion by Heiko Obermann in the 1960s, for his 'semi-Pelagian' theological views. In contrast to traditional Augustinianism, he believed that God granted salvation to individuals on the basis of 'bonum quod in se est', that is, on the basis of an individual's intention to do good, rather than any achievement. While historians of theology know Holcot in these terms, his wide medieval reputation was rather different. Holcot was read all over Europe as an exegete, an explicator of biblical texts, especially the Old Testament sapiential books. This volume presents a selection, nearly a quarter of the whole, from Holcot's readings in the minor prophets, originally delivered in the 1330s as lectures in Oxford's Dominican studium. In a commentary appended to the text, it uses these selections to offer a view of exegesis, and of Holcot's strategies, that differs from customary scholarship on the topic. The commentary attempts to clarify the relation between Holcot's usually tacit discussion (a feature perhaps driven by the fact that the received text represents a reportatio or outline, not a stenographic transcription) and the biblical text at hand. It further addresses some argumentative features, principally Holcot's use of narrative and of imagistic distinctiones. The volume is fully annotated, with a facing-page translation, numerous references to analogous discussions elsewhere in Holcot (including his classic Super Sapientiam Salamonis), and full indexes of Holcot's biblical references, his parallel treatments, and his sources.

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Book SynopsisWritten by one of the editors of the new complete works of Henry Vaughan, Keeping the Ancient Way is the first book-length study of the poet by a single author for twenty years. It deals with a number of key topics that are central to the understanding and appreciation of this major seventeenth-century writer. These include his debt to the hermetic philosophy espoused by his twin brother (the alchemist, Thomas Vaughan); his royalist allegiance in the Civil War; his loyalty to the outlawed Church of England during the Interregnum; the unusual degree of intertextuality in his poetry (especially with the Scriptures and the devotional lyrics of George Herbert); and his literary treatment of the natural world (which has been variously interpreted from Christian, proto-Romantic, and ecological perspectives). Each of the chapters is self-contained and places its topic in relation to past and current critical debates, but the book is organized so that the biographical, intellectual, and political focus of Part One informs the discussion of poetic craftsmanship in Part Two. A wealth of historical information and close critical readings provide an accessible introduction to the poet and his period for students and general readers alike. The up-to-date scholarship will also be of interest to specialists in the literature and history of the Civil War and Interregnum.Trade Review'Keeping the Ancient Way is the first book-length study of Henry Vaughan in nearly two decades and will take its place among the finest studies of the poet. [...] The book’s strength is its focus on biography and intellectual and political history in the first part and poetic craftsmanship in the second. This context provides the framework for critical readings that will be of interest to specialists in the literature and history of the Civil War and Interregnum and will be invaluable to students of Henry and Thomas Vaughan alike. Keeping the Ancient Way is a great achievement.'Donald R. Dickson, Seventeenth-Century News Table of ContentsIntroductionPart One: Biographical and Historical Contexts1. Henry Vaughan and Breconshire2. Henry Vaughan and Thomas Vaughan3. Henry Vaughan and the Civil Wars4. Henry Vaughan and the Interregnum5. Henry Vaughan and the ChurchPart Two: Literary Practices6. Henry Vaughan and the Art of Allusion7. Henry Vaughan and George Herbert8. Henry Vaughan and the Scriptures9. Henry Vaughan and the Book of Nature10. Henry Vaughan and the Practice of PoetryEpilogue

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Book SynopsisGregory Palamas, a monk of Mount Athos and metropolitan of Thessalonike from 1347 to 1357, was a leading fourteenth-century Byzantine intellectual. He was the chief spokesman for the hesychasts in the controversy bearing that name, which began when a charge of heresy was laid against him in 1340 and ended with his proclamation as a saint in 1368. Although excellent English translations of some of Palamas’ theological writings are available, very few texts relating to his historical role have yet been translated. This book contains the first English translation of the contemporary Life of Palamas by Philotheos Kokkinos, which is our principal source of biographical information on him. Also translated into English for the first time are the Synodal Tomoi from 1341 to 1368, which chart the progress of the hesychast controversy from the viewpoint of the victors, together with the corpus of material relating to Palamas’ year of captivity among the Turks, which offers a unique insight into conditions for Christians and Muslims in the early Ottoman emirate. The translations, all of which are based on critical texts, are preceded by introductions which set Palamas in his historical context and propose some changes to the conventional chronology of his life. Trade Review'Norman Russell, a renowned scholar of patristic, Byzantine, and modern Greek theology, must be thanked for his enormous contribution in Gregory Palamas: The Hesychast Controversy and the Debate with Islam... For anyone who is interested in the figure of St. Gregory Palamas and the ecclesiastical events of the middle Palaiologan period, this is an essential volume to own.'The Pappas Patristic Institute ‘This very careful work, endowed with clear translations, well introduced and annotated... will render the greatest service both to researchers and to students’ Marie-Hélène Blanchet, Revue des Études Byzantines (translated from French)Table of ContentsGeneral Introduction1. Byzantium in the Mid-Fourteenth Century2. The Hesychast Controversy3. The Main Characteristics of Palamite Theology4. Palamas in Captivity among the Turks5. A Contested Saint6. The Reception of Palamas7. Texts and EditionsI. The Life of Gregory Palamas by Philotheos KokkinosII. The Synodal Tomos of 1341III. Letters from Prison in Constantinople1. To John Gabras2. To Philotheos 3. To Bessarion4. To the Empress AnnaIV. The Synodal Tomos of 1347 and Related Documents1. The Synodal Tomos of February 13472. The Prostagma of John VI Kantakouzenos of March 13473. The Anti-Palamite Tomos of July 1347V. The Synodal Tomos of 1351VI. Palamas in Captivity among the Turks1. Letter to his Church2. The Debate with the Chionai3. Letter to an Unknown RecipientVII. The Synodal Tomos of 1368GlossaryBibliographyIndexes

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Book SynopsisAlthough Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole, was perhaps the most influential spiritual author of the later English Middle Ages, the coming of print was not kind to him. Although a large collected Latin Opera appeared in the 1530s, it was scarcely exhaustive, and a number of the texts there included, notably Rolle's Latin Psalter commentary, have not been critically examined since. This volume partially redresses this silence by providing a sequence of four Latin texts that have remained in manuscript. Central to Rolle's oeuvre (and to this volume) is Rolle's meditative reading of the first three verses of The Song of Songs, 'Super Canticum'. Also included are two relatively brief unedited texts, 'Super Magnificat' and 'De vita activa et contemplativa'. In addition, the volume reassesses the universal manuscript ascription to Rolle of 'Viridarium, vel De misericordia Dei'; although the work is here reascribed, there is also an edition of selected passages. Unprinted Latin Writings also includes an introduction, critical and textual, some textual annotation, a description of all those previously undescribed manuscripts used here, and an index of the medieval sources cited.Trade Review‘As can be expected, Hanna’s editorial choices are sound, and his editorial considerations, especially for the Super Canticum, are explained with admirable clarity in the introduction… [a] slim but highly erudite and ambitious volume.’ Greti Dinkova-Bruun, SpeculumTable of ContentsForewordAbbreviated ReferencesIntroductionBibliographyThe Texts:Super Canticum CanticorumSuper MagnificatDe vita activa et contemplativaViridarium, vel De misericordia DeiNotes to the textsAppendix: Manuscripts previously undescribedIndex fontium

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents the first study, critical edition, and translation of one of the earliest works by Richard Rolle (c. 1300-1349), a hermit and mystic whose works were widely read in England and on the European continent into the early modern period. Rolle’s explication of the Old Testament Book of Lamentations gives us a glimpse of how the biblical commentary tradition informed what would become his signature mystical, doctrinal, and reformist preoccupations throughout his career. Rolle’s English and explicitly mystical writings have been widely accessible for decades. Recent attention has turned again to his Latin commentaries, many of which have never been critically edited or thoroughly studied. This attention promises to give us a fuller sense of Rolle’s intellectual, devotional, and reformist development, and of the interplay between his Latin and English writings.Richard Rolle: On Lamentations places Rolle’s early commentary within a tradition of explication of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in the context of his own career. The edition collates all known witnesses to the text, from Dublin, Oxford, Prague, and Cologne. A source apparatus as well as textual and explanatory notes accompany the edition.

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Book SynopsisRichard Whitford’s Dyuers Holy Instrucyons and Teachynges Very Necessary for the Helth of Mannes Soule is the last printed work written by a brother of the Brigittine community at Syon Abbey. A vocal opponent of Lutheran reforms and Henry VIII’s agenda to install himself as the head of the Church of England, Richard Whitford was also Syon’s most prolific author. His writing provides pastoral guidance on a range of issues as well as powerful articulations of the value of religious life during the turbulent years preceding the king’s break from the Catholic Church. Published in 1541, Dyuers Holy Instrucyons is also the only Syon text printed after the dissolution of the monasteries. This text thus offers a rare perspective on the concerns of those faithful to the old religion from a religious brother who actively participated in the abbey’s campaign against Lutheran reformers. As with his previous work, Whitford’s Dyuers Holy Instrucyons maintains an openly confrontational stance toward radical reformers while offering instruction to readers on issues that would certainly have been topical for faithful who lived after the 1534 Act of Supremacy—issues focussed on patience, avoiding vice, impediments to spiritual perfection, and detraction. This edition makes this significant work available for the first time to modern readers with crucial discussions of the history and themes of the texts, including the indivisibility of politics and religion in the early years of the Reformation and the crucial role that Syon Abbey played in the textual representation of this period in English history.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTIONGeneral IntroductionThe Life of Richard WhitfordSyon Community, Lay Piety, and Vernacular Devotional LiteratureMonasticism and the ReformationDyuers Holy Instrucyons and Teachynges Very Necessary for the Helth of Mannes SouleThe Boke of PacienceA Worke of Dyuers Impediments and Lettes of PerfectionAn Instruction to auoyde and eschewe vyces and folowe good maners or the Consilia of IsidoreOf Detraction. Chrisostomus homelia terciaExtant Copies of the TextWilliam MiddletonThe Language of the TextEditorial ProceduresTHE TEXTNotes to the TextApparatusGlossaryBibliography

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Book SynopsisZoroastrianism was the religion of the ancient Persian kings and following the Arab conquest, it remained the religion of a significant portion of the population in Iran and parts of Central Asia. This book investigates the most important polemical treatise in the Zoroastrian tradition, the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār (“The Doubt-Dispelling Disquisition”), which was written by the theologian and philosopher Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād. The text was composed in the ninth or tenth centuries in a language known as Middle Persian. A sophisticated work of rationalist theology, the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār systematically critiques several rival religions of the late antique and early medieval Middle East, including Islam. The critique of Islam found in chapters 11 and 12 is the only sustained, systematic polemic against Islam in premodern Zoroastrian literature, one that attacks monotheism by focusing on the problem of evil. The text is of fundamental importance for understanding Iran’s transformation from a predominantly Zoroastrian society to a predominantly Muslim one during the Early Middle Ages. This is the first book devoted to the Islamic sections of the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār. It provides a new translation and commentary of these important sections along with introductory chapters that explore Zoroastrians’ relationship with other religions in Late Antiquity and the early Islamic period; Mardānfarrox’s intellectual milieu (especially the influence of Islamic theology and interreligious debates); and the history of Zoroastrian polemics against Islam.

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Book SynopsisThis volume provides the first English (or indeed any modern) translation of two early ninth-century hagiographical texts that deal with the Virgin Mary and the apostle Andrew. Both texts are attributed to a Constantinopolitan monk and priest called Epiphanios of the Monastery of Kallistratos. The Life of the Virgin represents the earliest attempt by a Greek-speaking Christian author to provide a full-length biography of this holy figure, from the time of her conception to her death and assumption into heaven. The Life of St Andrew not only provides a brief account of this apostle’s life and mission, but also traces the dissemination of his cult, including relics and an icon, in Asia Minor especially during the iconoclast period. Epiphanios reveals his iconophile opinions in this text, accusing iconoclasts of having attempted to destroy some of these objects. A detailed introduction and commentary provide background on Epiphanios and his literary sources, along with assessment of his contribution to the Byzantine Mariological and hagiographical traditions.

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Book SynopsisAs humanity steadily decimates the global bird population, scientists and scholars are discovering that birds may have played a greater role in shaping human evolution than primates. Our distant ancestors imitated birdsong to develop language and followed bird migration flyways around the world, consistently settling in prime bird habitat. Church of Birds is an eco-history of human evolution that’s supported by recent scientific discoveries, ancient myth, and sacred texts. Across dozens of cultures, migratory birds were seen as divine agents of a benevolent sun, delivering seeds to the landscape in spring and guiding souls to a heavenly paradise in the fall. These mythic roles were ultimately incorporated into Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

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Book SynopsisNational Jewish BookAwardsFinalistfor the Nahum N. Sarna Memorial Award for Scholarship, 2018. Hasidism, a movement of religious awakening and social reform,originated in the mid-eighteenth century. After two and a half centuries ofcrisis, upheaval, and renewal, it remains a vibrant way of life and acompelling aspect of Jewish experience. This book explores the profoundintellectual and religious issues that the hasidic masters raised in theirTorah commentary, and brings to the fore the living qualities of their sermons(derashot). Ora Wiskind-Elper addresses a spectrum of topics: creation,revelation, and redemption; hermeneutics, epistemology, psychology,Romanticism, poetry and poetics, art history, Hebrew fiction, cultural history,and tropes of Jewish suffering and hope. Fully engaged in the texts and theirspirituality, she brings them to bear on postmodernist challenges totraditional spiritual and religious sensibilities. This is a comprehensive study, unique in pedagogy, clarity, andoriginality. It uses the full range of critical scholarship on hasidism as asocial and ideological movement. At the same time, it maintains a strong focuson hasidic Torah commentary as a conveyor of theology and value. Each of itschapters presents a fundamentally new approach. Wiskind-Elper's translationsare in themselves an innovative moment in the tradition and spiritual historyof the passages she offers.

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Book SynopsisCommenting on the Bible was the principal way in which early medieval Christians conducted the work of theology; commentaries also open a window for modern readers onto the way in which these people strove to understand humanity, the world and history through complex acts of layered winterpretation and cross-referencing within the sacred text. Bede's commentary on Luke, composed in the first half of the 710s, is a turning point in his career as an exegete. It is ambitious in its length, but also in its subject-matter, because the life of Christ is the key to the meaning of the entire Bible. To expound a Gospel also entails engaging with a formidable body of commentary by the Church Fathers. In Bede's case, the Luke commentary marks as well the moment when he publically asserts his own intellectual authority by displaying his mastery of the Patristic tradition, and by deftly confronting criticisms of his earlier works. Finally, Bede's treatment of Luke was highly influential in the Carolingian Renaissance, and in the compilation of the Glossa Ordinaria in the twelfth century. This translation is thus an important resource for historians, as well as scholars interested in the role of the Bible in medieval culture.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Why did Bede compose a Commentary on Luke? 2. The structure of On Luke. 3. Bede's expository strategies. 4. Key themes in On Luke. 5. Bede's style and vocabulary. 6. The manuscripts and the transmission of the text. 7. List of full manuscripts and manuscripts of extracts of Bede's Commentary on Luke. 8. Editions of Bede's Commentary on Luke. 9. Principles governing the present translation. Bede: Commentary on Luke Appendix 1. Emendations to text of CCSL 120. Appendix 2. Chapter numbers and Eusebian canon section numbers. Appendix 3. Luke canon section and table number with equivalent canon section numbers and modern chapter/verse parallels in Matthew, Mark, and John. Bibliography Index of Sources General Index

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Book SynopsisA close examination of religious texts illuminates the way in which parish priests dealt with their female parishioners in the Middle Ages. The question of how priests were taught to think about and care for female parishioners is the topic of this book. As neither misogynist villains nor saintly heroes, clerical authors of pastoral vernacular literature persisted both in their characterization of women as difficult parishioners and in their attempts to recognize women as ordinary parishioners who deserved ordinary pastoral care. Focusing on the important vernacular writings of John Mirk, his Festial and Instructions for Parish Priests, the author reveals how even a small number of influential sermon compilations, exempla, and pastoral guides could have significantly shaped the perceptions, attitudes, and- perhaps - actions of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century priests. Shedding light on the mental universe of the late medieval parish, this study offers important new insights into the reality of how priests perceived and fulfilled their spiritual obligations to the women they served. BETH ALLISON BARR is Assistant Professor of European Women's History at Baylor University.Trade Review[This] excellent monograph will be of use to anyone studying women between the time of the Black Death and the Reformation. * YEAR'S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES *A well-intentioned and widely-researched book. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *Possesses multiple strengths. With each new chapter [Barr] presents a solid argument backed with valid textual evidence. * SPECULUM *Demonstrates sound, serious and painstaking research supported by abundant, colourful and highly enjoyable exempla. These exempla are an absolute delight in themselves and can potentially interest not only scholars of late medieval England and medievalists in general but also historians, history teachers and all those interested in the history of European civilisation. [...] An important and thorough study. * REVUE D'HISTOIRE ECCLESIASTIQUE *Adds new dimensions to our understanding of the pastoral care of women in late-medieval England. It is also a valuable addition to the developing field of medieval gender studies. [...] This study adds new layers of complexity to our picture of the pastoral care of women in medieval England. [...] The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England will make an excellent textbook for college and university courses in the history of pastoral care, medieval church history, and medieval gender studies and women's studies. It will also be a welcome addition to the libraries of scholars in those fields. * CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction: "Be it husband, be it wife?" Pastoral Vernacular Literature Pastoral Language Pastoral Perceptions Pastoral Care Conclusion: Gendered Lessons

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Book SynopsisExamines the role of Christianity in British statecraft, politics, media, the armed forces and in the education and socialization of the young during the Second World War. This volume presents a major reappraisal of the role of Christianity in Great Britain between 1939 and 1945, examining the influence of Christianity on British society, statecraft, politics, the media, the armed forces, and on the education and socialization of the young. Its chapters address themes such as the spiritual mobilization of nation and empire; the limitations of Mass Observation's commentary on wartime religious life; Catholic responses to strategic bombing; servicemen and the dilemma of killing; the development of Christian-Jewish relations, and the predicament of British military chaplains in Germany in the summer of 1945. By demonstrating the enduring -even renewed- importance of Christianity in British national life, British Christianity and the Second World War also sets the scene for some major post-war developments. Though the war years triggered a 'resacralization' of British society and culture, inherent racism meant that the exalted self-image of Christian Britain proved sadly deceptive for post-war immigrants from the Caribbean. Wartime confidence in the prospective role of the state in religious education soon transpired to be ill-founded, while the profound upheavals of war -and even the bromides of 'BBC Religion'- were, in the longer term, corrosive of conventional religious practice and traditional denominational loyalties. This volume will be of interest to historians of British society and the Second World War, twentieth-century British religion, and the perennial interplay of religion and conflict.Table of Contents1 Introduction - Michael Snape 2 The British State and Spiritual Mobilization during the Second World War - Philip Williamson 3 Radio Religion: The British Broadcasting Corporation and Faith Propaganda at 'Home' and 'Overseas' in the Second World War - Hannah Elias 4 Getting the Message Out: Publishing 'British Christianity' 1939-1943 - Keith Robbins, completed by Stuart Bell 5 Christianity, Culture, and the Universities in Wartime England - Matthew Grimley 6 Mass Observation, Religion, and the Second World War: When 'Cooper's Snoopers' Caught the Spirit - Clive D. Field 7 British Sunday Schools during the Second World War - Caitriona McCartney 8 Principled or Pragmatic? English Nonconformist Opposition to Pacifism in the Inter-War Period - Stuart Bell 9 Where Loyalties Lie: English Catholic Responses to Allied Strategic Bombing in the Second World War - Joshua Madrid 10 British Christians and the Morality of Killing in the Second World War - John Broom 11 Jewish­-Christian Relations in the Second World War - Jonathan M. Lewis 12 Agents of Occupation or Reconciliation? Army Chaplains in Germany in the Summer of 1945 - Peter Howson Index

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Book SynopsisA multi-disciplinary re-evaluation of the role of women religious in the Middle Ages, both inside and outside the cloister. Medieval women found diverse ways of expressing their religious aspirations: within the cloister as members of monastic and religious orders, within the world as vowesses, or between the two as anchorites. Via a range of disciplinary approaches, from history, archaeology, literature, and the visual arts, the essays in this volume challenge received scholarly narratives and re-examine the roles of women religious: their authority and agency within their own communities and the wider world; their learning and literacy; place in the landscape; and visual culture. Overall, they highlight the impact of women on the world around them, the significance of their presence in communities, and the experiences and legacies they left behind.Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Contributors Preface List of Abbreviations Introduction KIMM CURRAN AND JANET BURTON 1. Reform, Change, and Renewal: Women Religious in the Central Middle Ages, 800-1050 STEVEN VANDERPUTTEN 2. New Movements of the 12th Century: Diversity, Belonging, and Order(s) KATHARINE SYKES 3. Change and Renewal: Mendicants and Tertiaries in Later Medieval Europe ALISON MORE 4. On the Fringes: Anchorites CATE GUNN 5. `Quasi-religious': Vowesses LAURA RICHMOND 6. Authority and Agency: Women as Heads of Religious Houses ELIZABETH A. LEHFELDT 7. Women Religious, Secular Households: The Outside World and Crossing Boundaries in the Later Middle Ages RACHEL M. DELMAN 8. Literacies, Learning, and Communal Reform: The Case of Alijt Bake DIANA DENISSEN 9. Family and Friends: Gift Giving, Books, and Book Inscriptions in Women's Religious Communities SARA CHARLES 10. Communities of Medieval Religious Women and Their Landscapes YVONNE SEALE 11. Materiality and Archaeology of Women Religious TRACY COLLINS 12. Between Collective Memory and Individual Remembrance in Women's Religious Communities MERCEDES PÉREZ VIDAL Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisNew approaches to understanding religious women's involvement in monastic reform, demonstrating how women's experiences were more ambiguous and multi-layered than previously assumed. Over the last two decades, scholarship has presented a more nuanced view of women's attitude to and agency in medieval monastic reform, challenging the idea that they were, by and large, unwilling to accept or were necessarily hostile towards reform initiatives. Rather, it has shown that they actively participated in debates about the ideas and structures that shaped their religious lives, whether rejecting, embracing, or adapting to calls for "reform" contingent on their circumstances. Nevertheless, fundamental questions regarding the gendered nature of religious reform are ripe for further examination. This book brings together innovative research from a range of disciplines to re-evaluate and enlarge our knowledge of women's involvement in spiritual and institutional change in female monastic communities over the period c. 1000 - c. 1500. Contributors revise conventional narratives about women and monastic reform, and earlier assumptions of reform as negative or irrelevant for women. Drawing on a diverse array of visual, material and textual sources, it presents "snapshots" of reform from western Europe, stretching from Ireland to Iberia. Case-studies focussing on a number of different topics, from tenth-century female saints' lives to fifteenth-century liturgical books, from the tenth-century Leominster prayerbook to archaeological remains in Ireland, from embroideries and tapestries to the rebellious nuns of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, offer a critical reappraisal of how monastic women (and their male associates) reflected, individually and collectively, on their spiritual ideals and institutional forms.Table of Contents1 Debating Identities: Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, c. 900-1500 Julie Hotchin and Jirki Thibaut 2 Liturgy and Female Monastic Hagiography around the Year 1000: A lecture croisée of the Life of Liutrud, the Second Life of Glodesind of Metz and the So-called Pontificale Romano-Germanicum Gordon Blennemann 3 Remakers of Reform: The Women Religious of Leominster and their Prayerbook Katie Anne-Marie Bugyis 4 The Materiality of Female Religious Reform in Twelfth-Century Ireland: The Case of Co-Located Religious Houses Tracy Collins 5 Women as Witnesses: Picturing Gender and Spiritual Identity in a Twelfth-Century Embroidered Fragment from Northern Germany Julie Hotchin and Vera Henkelmann 6 Mulieres Religiose and Cistercian Nuns in Northern Italy in the Thirteenth Century: A Choice of 'Order' Elena Vanelli 7 Circulation of Books and Reform Ideas between Female Monasteries in Medieval Castile: From Twelfth-Century Cistercians to the Observant Reform Mercedes Pérez Vidal 8 Women, Men and Local Monasticism in Late Medieval Bologna Sherri Franks Johnson 9 Building Community: Material Concerns in the Fifteenth-Century Monastic Reform Jennifer Edwards 10 Who Made Reform Visible? Male and Female Agency in Changing Visual Culture Katharina Ulrike Mersch 11 Nuns, Cistercian Chant and Observant Reform in the Southern Low Countries John Glasenapp Index

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Book SynopsisA new investigation into the twelfth-century accounts of the First Crusade, showing their complex relationship with the Bible. The Bible exerted an enormous influence on the crusading movement: it provided medieval Christians with language to describe holy war, spiritual models for crusaders, and justifications for conquests in the East. This book adds tothe growing body of scholarship on the biblical underpinnings of crusading, offering a reappraisal of the early twelfth-century narratives of the First Crusade as works of biblical exegesis rather than simply historical texts. Itrestores these works and their authors to the context of the monastic and cathedral schools where the curricula centred on biblical study, and demonstrates how the crusade's narrators applied familiar methods of scriptural commentary to the crusade, treating it as a text which could, like the Bible, be understood through historical, allegorical, and mystical lenses. These glosses of the First Crusade, which collectively constitute one of the greatintellectual achievements of their age, drew upon the Scriptures and earlier Christian theology, pilgrimage guides, and polemic to construct the crusade as a new chapter of sacred history. Within this story, the first crusaders played various biblically inspired roles: as new Israelites, they wrested the promised land from Muslims cast as new Canaanites and Babylonians; as new apostles, they reenacted some of the greatest miracles of the Gospels. By reconstructing the interpretive processes that made such readings possible, this study allows us to better appreciate the crusading movement's relationship to church reform, the apostolic revival, and the growth of anti-Jewish sentiment in twelfth-century Europe. KATHERINE ALLEN SMITH is professor of history at the University of Puget Sound.Trade ReviewAs Katherine Allen Smith convincingly demonstrates in this thorough and fascinating book, we stand to learn a significant amount about the authors of crusade texts, their audiences, and what it meant to write crusade narrative, if we take the time to tap into this rich seam. This book should be required reading for any student or scholar of the medieval historiography of crusading, or of medieval Latin Christian historiography in general. -- SPECULUM[A] highly interesting work that should be essential reading for anyone who teaches or studies the crusades. -- JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS CULTURES[This] rich study opens the door to further investigations of the relationships between different literary genres and between exegesis, theology, and history. * SEHEPUNKTE *Table of ContentsIntroduction History and Biblical Exegesis in the Latin West The Bible in the Chronicles of the First Crusade Into the Promised Land Babylon and Jerusalem Conclusion Appendix 1: Tables and Charts of Biblical References Appendix 2: List of Biblical References in the Texts Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA richly informed volume that deserves the attention of all scholars interested in this remarkable figure. - SEHEPUNKTE First modern study devoted to one of the twelfth-century's most enigmatic, influential and fascinating figures. Henry of Blois (d. 1171) was a towering figure in twelfth-century England. Grandson of William the Conqueror and brother to King Stephen, he played a central role in shaping the course of the civil war that characterized his brother's reign. Bishop of Winchester and abbot of Glastonbury for more than four decades, Henry was one of the richest men in the kingdom, and effectively governed the English Church for a time as Papal Legate. Raised and tonsured at Cluny, he was an intimate friend of Peter the Venerable and later saved the great abbey from financial ruin. Towards the end of his life he presided, albeit reluctantly, over the trial of Thomas Becket. Henry was a remarkable man: an administrator of exceptional talent, a formidable ecclesiastical statesman, a bold and eloquent diplomat, and twelfth-century England's most prolific patron of the arts. In the first major book-length study of Henry to be published since 1932, nine scholars explore new perspectives on the most crucial aspects of his life and legacy. By bringing ecclesiastical and documentary historians together with archaeologists and historians of art, architecture, literature and ideas, this interdisciplinary collection will serve as a catalyst for renewed study of this fascinating man and the world in which he operated.Trade ReviewThis volume represents a major step forward for the study of a pivotal figure in twelfth-century history. [...] Ultimately, this book is a vital resource for any scholar hoping to better understand Henry of Blois's place in twelfth-century English history, and a step toward a more comprehensive portrait of this elusive figure. -- COMITATUSA richly informed volume that deserves the attention of all scholars interested in this remarkable figure. * SEHEPUNKTE *The editors and contributors should be applauded for bringing together such a diverse and compelling series of articles on a figure surely deserving of further study. This volume stands as a strong testament to the figure at its heart and goes a long way towards filling the gaps in our understanding of Henry of Blois. -- Craig M. Nakashian * Nottingham Medieval Studies *There is much to admire and enjoy about this collection. ... Historians have become rather too preoccupied by the question of whether Henry was a great man. By ignoring that debate and probing into particular aspects of his life and career, this book sheds new light not only on an individual but also on the many roles played by leading clerics in twelfth-century Europe. * SPECULUM *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Genealogical Table: The Family Connections of Henry of Blois Introduction: Approaches to Henry of Blois - John Munns and William Kynan-Wilson Causa Dei et ecclesie Cluniacensis: Henry of Blois and Cluny - Michael J. Franklin Henry of Blois and his Legation in England - Barbara Bombi The Episcopal Colleagues of Henry of Blois - John Munns The Architectural Heritage of Bishop Henry of Blois at Winchester Cathedral - John Crook Wolvesey: Henry of Blois' domus quasi palatium in Winchester - Martin Biddle Bishop Henry's Bible - Claire Donovan Henry of Blois and the Construction of Roman Identity - William Kynan-Wilson Henry of Blois: Between Patronage and Representation in the Long Twelfth Century - Matthew M. Mesley The Last Days of Henry of Blois - Edmund King Timeline Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the adaptation of Hinduism and Islam in diasporic settings and inter-religious relations in the Girmit diaspora. Archival research, micro-biographies, and ethnographic studies shine light on the development of Hindu and Muslim communities around the world, and the relationships between them, to deliver new insights into the history of indentured labour and its impact on the formation of religious heritage and identity. Twelve chapters cover regions including the Southern Pacific, Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean. Part I examines Hinduism in Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji and the Caribbean, while Part II considers the Muslim diaspora. Importantly, Part III looks at the relationships between these two religious groups within the Girmit diaspora, including interreligious cooperation and the experiences of religiously mixed families. Includes perspective from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, linguists and others. Features contributors based in Australia, France, Fiji, Mauritius, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago and the USA.Table of ContentsFigures and Tables Foreword Preface Introduction I. HINDUISM AND HINDUS IN THE GIRMIT DIASPORA 1. The Construction of Hindu Authority in Mauritius: The Case of a Tamil Priest - MATHIEU CLAVEYROLAS 2. Hinduism in South Africa, 1860-2020 - VINAY LAL and GOOLAM VAHED 3. Transnational Hindu Movements and the South African Experience after Indenture - KARTHIGASEN GOPALAN 4. Pivotal Developments on Hinduism in Fiji - PRASHNEEL GOUNDAR 5. The Impact of the Årya Sam"aj on Caribbean Hinduism - FREEK L. BAKKER 6. 'They Came to Mauritian Shores': The History and Symbolism of Ram Leela and Ramayana in Mauritius - SATYENDRA PEERTHUM 7. 'Beyond Vanvaas: Hinduism in Trinidad' - SHERRY ANN SINGH II. ISLAM AND MUSLIMS IN THE GIRMIT DIASPORA 8. The Ummah in the Caribbean: African and Asian Origins of Caribbean Islam - BRINSLEY SAMAROO 9. From Indentured Labourers to Permanent Settlers: Muslims in Fiji - JAN A. ALI 10. The Muslims who Arrived in Trinidad, 1887-1891: A Preliminary Assessment - HALIMA-SA'ADIA KASSIM and PERRY POLAR III. INTERRELIGIOUS RELATIONS IN THE GIRMIT DIASPORA 11. Interreligious Cooperation: Suriname and Guyana, 1950-2014 - KIRTIE ALGOE 12. Fasting Practices of Religiously-mixed Families in Trinidad: Evaluation of the Social Psychological Impact - SHALIMA MOHAMMED Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisAn edition of the surviving accounts of two important religious fraternities, one based at St Margaret's Westminster, the other at the Chapel of St Mary Rounceval at Charing Cross.These organisations drew their membership from across the social spectrum, from nobles and senior clergy, to local parishioners and merchants. They formed a key focus of social and religious life, and their accounts throw light on the regular activities of Westminster inhabitants.

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Book SynopsisThis two volume set critiques an oft neglected area of study. The readings on "Historical Relationships" highlight the divorce between economic analysis and theology that occurred very early in the development of the discipline, and which now seems impossible to bridge. A second selection of readings reflects the critique of economic analysis from a theological perspective that has been developed mainly in the last of the 20th century.Trade Review’Oslington provides an excellent introductory overview of the field that also discusses other relevant but excluded research. . . this is a valuable collection of papers that demonstrates that both studies of religious behaviour and the impact of religion have long preoccupied economists and, since the 1970s, are increasingly entering the mainstream with a fertile research agenda. . . these volumes provide a useful resource and it may not be too long before a third volume is required to keep pace with the explosion of research in the field.’ -- Ian Smith, Economic Record’Economics and Religion is a pioneering work aimed at collecting important contributions to the analysis of the interaction between religion, Christianity, and economics.’ -- Francis Woehrling, Faith & Economics’. . . both Paul Oslington and Edward Elgar Publishing are to be congratulated for producing such an excellent contribution to intellectual history, the history of economic thought, theology and religious studies. The relationships between economics and religion are highly relevant to serious students of the history of economic thought.’ -- James E. Alvey, History of Economics Review’Paul Oslington has made a valuable contribution to both the secular and religious fields. His volumes bring together a range of recent academic thinking about the relations between religion and economics as it has occurred in the past and exists currently. The selection is judicious and timely, encompassing particular viewpoints with pertinent criticisms of them, a hallmark of appropriate academic practice. The two volumes are likely to become a standard reference work for the field.’ -- Clive Beed, Economic Record’. . . a rich selection of work at the intersection of economics and religion. Paul Oslington, the editor, and Edward Elgar, the publisher, have done a real service in bringing this work together in one place.’ -- Andrew M. Yuengert, Journal of Markets and Morality’At some time or other, most thoughtful Christians will have wondered about the relationship between economics and theology. . . The collection of readings obtained in Paul Oslington’s Economics and Religion admirably covers many issues at the interface. . . The selection of material, some of which has been difficult to obtain, has drawn deserved praise from eminent scholars in Australia, the UK and the US.’ -- Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education’Anyone teaching a course on economics and Christian belief or wanting to have something to hand to which to point inquisitive students (and hopefully colleagues) may well want to recommend this collection to their librarian. . . A collection such as this is long overdue. . . Paul Oslington has gone out of his way to pull in some excellent but little read material. These volumes provide an excellent starting point for the academic or student setting out to understand the nature of the discourse between economics and theology. There was much in here with which I was not familiar and so it has been a welcome discovery.’ -- Andrew Henley, Association of Christian Economists Journal’Ever since Adam Smith, religion and economics have been interwoven. This unique collection takes the reader from Smith right up to the present day and provides a fascinating survey for experts and non-experts alike. Highly recommended.’ -- Kim Hawtrey, Macquarie University, Australia’Economists and calculators are beginning - just beginning - to acknowledge the transcendent. Economics and Religion is a landmark on a spiritual journey. The long road from St Thomas through the Blessed A. Smith, so long diverted by the anti-Christ Jeremy Bentham, is taken up again in these volumes. They should be owned by every serious library, whether a library of God or of Mammon. It will not perhaps surprise people that economists have something to say about the economics of religion, since economists believe they have something to say about everything; what is surprising is that religion has something to say about economics.’ -- Deirdre N. McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago, US’Paul Oslington has done a magnificent job in tracking down the papers and extracts from books reprinted in Economics and Religion. No longer will those who work in the field have to chase difficult-to-locate journals or books that are out of print. More than that, the selection indicates that this is an extremely lively and eclectic area of study, not deserving the benign neglect shown by most mainstream economists. The readings on ‘Historical Relationships’ highlight the divorce between economic analysis and theology that occurred very early in the development of the discipline, and which now seems impossible to bridge. A second selection of readings reflects the critique of economic analysis from a theological perspective that has been developed mainly in the last 25 years. And a third set of readings picks up on the economic analysis of religion that has come mainly from the Chicago School in recent years. The selections indicated Oslington’s mastery of the field: it would not be possible to find a better guide.’ -- Donald Hay, Oxford University, UK’Paul Oslington has done a simply marvellous job in pulling together the various bits of writing on the relation between economics and religion. The collection might surprise quite a few, who might have expected this area to be a trifle thin. In fact, the range and quality of these pieces should impress and delight everyone - including all such sceptics. Ranging across the history of thought, “economic theology”, ethics, methodology, and the application of economics to the study of religious behaviour, these are indeed rich pickings. It is a fascinating collection, taken from a surprisingly rich vein. Well done, Paul Oslington! And well done, Edward Elgar!’ -- Geoffrey Brennan, Australian National University’Paul Oslington has gathered together a wide-ranging selection of important articles on the too often neglected links between economics and religion. This is an important service both to the profession and to all those concerned with the philosophical and moral foundations of economics and the economy. The volumes deserve to be widely read.’ -- G.C. Harcourt, University of New South Wales, AustraliaTable of ContentsContents: Volume I Acknowledgements Introduction Paul Oslington PART I HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS 1. Barry Gordon (1994), ‘Theological Positions and Economic Perspectives in Ancient Literature’ 2. Bruce J. Malina (1997), ‘Embedded Economics: The Irrelevance of Christian Fictive Domestic Economy’ 3. Jacob Viner (1978), ‘Religious Thought and Economic Society: Four Chapters of an Unfinished Work’ 4. Jacob Viner (1972), ‘The Invisible Hand and Economic Man’ 5. John Milbank (1990), ‘Political Economy as Theodicy and Agnostics’ 6. Emma Rothschild (1994), ‘Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand’ 7. Lisa Hill (2001), ‘The Hidden Theology of Adam Smith’ 8. A.M.C. Waterman (2002), ‘Economics as Theology: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations’ 9. Gary M. Anderson (1988), ‘Mr. Smith and the Preachers: The Economics of Religion in the Wealth of Nations’ 10. Charles G. Leathers and J. Patrick Raines (1992), ‘Adam Smith on Competitive Religious Markets’ 11. J.M. Pullen (1981), ‘Malthus’ Theological Ideas and their Influence on his Principle of Population’ 12. Boyd Hilton (1985), ‘Chalmers as Political Economist’ 13. A.M.C. Waterman (2001), ‘The Beginning of “Boundaries”: The Sudden Separation of Economics from Christian Theology’ 14. Edward Norman (1987), ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Contribution’ 15. Rodger Charles S.J. (1998), ‘A Summary of Christian Social Teaching’ 16. Bradley W. Bateman and Ethan B. Kapstein (1999), ‘Between God and the Market: The Religious Roots of the American Economic Association’ 17. Robert H. Nelson (1993), ‘The Theological Meaning of Economics’ Name Index Volume II Acknowledgements An introduction by the editor to both volumes appears in Volume I PART I RELIGIOUS ECONOMICS AND ITS CRITICS A Christianity 1. Kenneth E. Boulding ([1950] 1968), ‘Religious Perspectives in Economics’ 2. D.L. Munby (1956), ‘Christians and Economic Problems’ 3. Frank H. Knight (1939), ‘Ethics and Economic Reform: III. Christianity’ 4. A.B. Cramp (1982), ‘Preface’ and ‘Naturalism: The World-view of Modern Economics’ 5. Douglas Vickers (1991), ‘Theology and the Last of the Economists’ 6. Donald A. Hay (1989), ‘Christianity and Economics: Biblical Foundations’, ‘Christianity and Economics: Theological Ethics’ and ‘Postscript’ 7. Kim Hawtrey (1986), ‘Evangelicals and Economics’ 8. Clive Beed and Cara Beed (1996), ‘A Christian Perspective on Economics’ 9. Michael Novak (1982), ‘A Theology of Democratic Capitalism’ 10. John P. Tiemstra (1994), ‘What Should Christian Economists Do? Doing Economics, But Differently’ 11. Paul Heyne (1994), ‘Passing Judgments’ 12. J. David Richardson (1994), ‘What Should (Christian) Economists Do?...Economics!’ [Originally published as ‘Frontiers in Economics and Christian Scholarship’] B Islam 13. Timur Kuran (1995), ‘Islamic Economics and the Islamic Subeconomy’ C Judaism 14. Jacob Neusner (1990), ‘The Economics of Judaism’ PART II ECONOMICS OF RELIGION 15. Corry Azzi and Ronald Ehrenberg (1975), ‘Household Allocation of Time and Church Attendance’ 16. Ronald G. Ehrenberg (1977), ‘Household Allocation of Time and Religiosity: Replication and Extension’ 17. Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Robert F. Hébert and Robert D. Tollison (1989), ‘An Economic Model of the Medieval Church: Usury as a Form of Rent Seeking’ 18. Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Robert F. Hébert and Robert D. Tollison (1992), ‘The Economics of Sin and Redemption: Purgatory as a Market-Pull Innovation?’ 19. Laurence R. Iannaccone (1992), ‘Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-riding in Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives’ 20. James D. Montgomery (1996), ‘Contemplations on the Economic Approach to Religious Behavior’ 21. Steve Bruce (1993), ‘Religion and Rational Choice: A Critique of Economic Explanations of Religious Behavior’ 22. Steven J. Brams (1980), ‘Introduction’ 23. Avinash Dixit and Gene Grossman (1984), ‘Directly Unproductive Prophet-Seeking Activities’ 24. Jagdish Bhagwati and T.N. Srinivasan (1991), ‘Religion as DUP Activity’ Name Index

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Book SynopsisA new examination of the links between religion and politics in the early eighteenth century, showing how the defence of protestantism became a major plank in foreign policy. Religious ideas and power-politics were strongly connected in the early eighteenth century: William III, George I and George II all took their role as defenders of the protestant faith extremely seriously, and confessional thinking was of major significance to court whiggery. This book considers the importance of this connection. It traces the development of ideas of the protestant interest, explaining how such ideas were used to combat the perceived threats to the European states system posed by universal monarchy, and showing how the necessity of defending protestantism within Europe became a theme in British and Hanoverian foreign policy. Drawing on a wide range of printed and manuscript material in both Britain and Germany, the book emphasises the importance of a European context for eighteenth-century British history, and contributes to debates about the justification of monarchy and the nature of identity in Britain. Dr ANDREW C. THOMPSON is Lecturer in History, Queens' College, Cambridge.Trade ReviewA fine study of British and Hanoverian foreign policy that raises important new questions; it reminds us of the importance of intangible and immaterial factors like religion, antipathy, stereotypes, and prejudices that, besides material interests, shaped foreign policies in the early modern period. * EIGHTEENTH-CENTURIES STUDIES *[A] painstakingly researched and authoritative account. A major account of early eighteenth-century British foreign policy, which should be required reading not just for those interested in the evolution of the British role in Europe, but also for those working on religion, domestic affairs and the press as well. * HISTORY *A great achievement. [...] Provides a dense, fact-filled and solidly source-based account. BULLETIN of the * GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE LONDON *[An] intellectually stimulating book. * REVIEWS IN HISTORY *Drawing on a wide and welcome range of British and European archives, this is an impressive and richly-instructive work. ARCHIVES Richly instructive, clearly organised and well-written. * INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW, March 2008 *

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Book SynopsisThis volume completes the edition of the two earliest manuscript Chapter Act books of Westminster Abbey, which is now the first cathedral or collegiate church to have all its Chapter Acts fully in print from the Reformation to theCivil War. It records the formal decisions of the Abbey's governing authority, many involving grants of office and leases of the Abbey's large and widely-scattered estate, principally in the midlands and the south-east, and especially in Westminster itself. A full introduction brings out the value of the documents in placing the Abbey in the tumultuous history of the church under James I and Charles I.Table of ContentsThe Edition - C S Knighton The Acts - C S Knighton Text - C S Knighton Select Genealogies - C S Knighton

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Book Synopsis`A major contribution to our understanding of the English Revolution.' Ann Hughes, Professor of Early Modern History, Keele University. John Goodwin [1594-1665] was one of the most prolific and controversial writers of the English Revolution; his career illustrates some of the most important intellectual developments of the seventeenth century. Educated at Queens'College, Cambridge, he became vicar of a flagship Puritan parish in the City of London. During the 1640s, he wrote in defence of the civil war, the army revolt, Pride's Purge, and the regicide, only to turn against Cromwell in 1657. Finally, repudiating religious uniformity, he became one of England's leading tolerationists. This richly contextualised study, the first modern intellectual biography of Goodwin, explores the whole range of writingsproduced by him and his critics. Amongst much else, it shows that far from being a maverick individualist, Goodwin enjoyed a wide readership, pastored one of the London's largest Independent congregations and was well connected tovarious networks. Hated and admired by Anglicans, Presbyterians and Levellers, he provides us with a new perspective on contemporaries like Richard Baxter and John Milton. It will be of special interest to students of Puritanism,the English Revolution, and early modern intellectual history. JOHN COFFEY is Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Leicester.Trade ReviewA big, richly detailed book. * CHURCH HISTORY *An exemplary intellectual biography which is rich in detail and highly sophisticated in its account of theological difference in seventeenth-century England. * H-NET REVIEWS *Coffey is a superb writer and an authority on mid-seventeenth-century British history.... [He] has written the first full-length biography of Goodwin since the nineteenth century, and this study may well prove as durable as its predecessor. * RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY *A full, scholarly and clear account.an extremely valuable narrative, which casts wider light on the 1640s and 1650s. * ARCHIVES *A valuable contribution to our understanding of the religious disputes of the Civil War and Interregnum. [...] A well-argued and well-documented study. * JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES *Coffey skilfully details the life of this important figure within the broader context of contemporary print culture and the many social and religious networks that were key to the Puritan Revolution. * ANGLICAN AND EPISCOPAL HISTORY *Table of ContentsIntroduction: `A Man by Himself' - John Coffey `A Tryar of Men's Doctrines', 1594-1632 - John Coffey `Goodwin of Colman-Street', 1633-39 - John Coffey `The Anti-Cavalier', 1640-43 - John Coffey `A Bitter Enemie to Presbyterie', 1643-45 - John Coffey `The Grand Heretick of England', 1645-48 - John Coffey `Champion of the Army', 1648-51 - John Coffey `The Great Spreader of Arminianism', 1647-53 - John Coffey `A Man of Strife', 1652-60 - John Coffey `Infamous Firebrand', 1660 and Beyond - John Coffey Conclusion: `A Harbinger of the Lockean Age' - John Coffey

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Book SynopsisExtracts from journals, diaries and official guidelines give a full picture of the role of the Victorian Deaconness. The revival of religious orders in the mid-nineteenth century opened up a field of Christian ministry for women distinct from previous types of church work, which had been voluntary, part-time, and necessarily limited by contemporary identification of women with the domestic sphere. The Deaconess Movement posed a threat to the accepted gender order of Victorian society, creating new spheres of activity and roles of authority for women outside the home. This volume, bringing together documents on the Movement from a variety of unpublished archives, offers an introduction to a neglected aspect of women's involvement in official Church ministry through the women's own voices.It provides a coherent illustration of the circumstances which fostered the revival of an ancient order of ministry for women, through the first-hand experience of some of the individuals who were involved in the early years. Socially divisive, theologically controversial, the claims of women to be part of an order analogous to that of the male diaconate formed the basis of their active participation in the ecclesiastical hierarchy right up to the presentday.Trade ReviewMeticulously edited, this volume offers valuable material for the history of the Church of England. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *This excellent selection of documents gives us a view of the early days of the Anglican Deaconess movement. DISTINCTIVE DIACONATE The book encourages historians to reassess the impact and significance of the revival of the female diaconate. Effectively contextualised by an informative, detailed introduction, and featuring the writing of women such as Isabella Gilmore and her more familiar counterpart Elizabeth Ferard, this volume will undoubtedly allow scholars to begin this important re-evaluation. This volume will better enable scholars to determine the complexity and significance of this process. * HISTORIANS OF WOMEN RELIGIOUS website *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: The Beginning of a Female Diaconate in the Church of England Part II: Work and Worship Part III: The Parish Deaconess Part IV: Relationship of a Deaconess to the Church Part V: The Deaconess in the Early Church Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA new investigation into the nature and identity of the Church of England on the eve of the Civil War. The character of the English Church at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century has always been a contentious historical issue. Concentrating on Cambridge University - where the critical theological debates took place and where new generations were schooled in learning and prejudice - this book aims to shed new light on the question, making use of a wealth of previously underexploited material from the archives of the University and the Colleges, and paying attention to some significant and unjustly neglected figures. After setting the scene in the seventeenth-century city and university, the book goes on to provide a careful and detailed analysis of the debate about Anglicans and Puritans, Arminians and Calvinists; it offers a lively account of bitter academic and religious rivalries fought out in sermons, academic exercises and in print. DAVID HOYLE is Canon Residentiary at Gloucester Cathedral and Director of Ministry in the Diocese of Gloucester.Trade ReviewUntil now, we have lacked an authoritative study of Cambridge divinity in the half-century leading up to the English Civil War. David Hoyle's fine monograph answers that need. [...] While the book never loses sight of the big picture, it also illuminates the individual profi les of its remarkable cast of characters, from Peter Baro and John Cosin to William Perkins and Samuel Ward. It is required reading for historians of the early Stuart church. * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW *A fecund addition to the historiographies of both the universities and the religion of the period. [...] A vital addition to the historiography of the university in particular and the operations of power and discourse in religion under the late Elizabethan and early Stuart regimes. * HISTORICAL JOURNAL *Table of ContentsIntroduction Life and Religion in Late Tudor Cambridge Cambridge and the Boundaries of Conformity Barrett, Baro and the Foundations of the Faith Assurance and Anxiety 1595-1619 The Seeds of Contention 1619-1629 `Near Popery and yet no Popery' `Who Changed Religion into Rebellion?' Appendix Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis`A major contribution to our understanding of the English Revolution.' Ann Hughes, Professor of Early Modern History, Keele University. John Goodwin [1594-1665] was one of the most prolific and controversial writers of the English Revolution; his career illustrates some of the most important intellectual developments of the seventeenth century. Educated at Queens'College, Cambridge, he became vicar of a flagship Puritan parish in the City of London. During the 1640s, he wrote in defence of the civil war, the army revolt, Pride's Purge, and the regicide, only to turn against Cromwell in 1657. Finally, repudiating religious uniformity, he became one of England's leading tolerationists. This richly contextualised study, the first modern intellectual biography of Goodwin, explores the whole range of writings producedby him and his critics. Amongst much else, it shows that far from being a maverick individualist, Goodwin enjoyed a wide readership, pastored one of London's largest Independent congregations and was well connected to various networks. Hated and admired by Anglicans, Presbyterians and Levellers, he provides us with a new perspective on contemporaries like Richard Baxter and John Milton. It will be of special interest to students of Puritanism, the EnglishRevolution, and early modern intellectual history. JOHN COFFEY is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leicester.Trade ReviewA major contribution to our understanding of the English Revolution. Ann Hughes, Professor of Early Modern History, Keele University .a splendid account of John Goodwin's controversial and ecclesiastical career.the finest and most comprehensive biography of this major figure of the Puritan Revolution. If offers a nuanced account of Goodwin's many polemical writings and it contributes to our understanding of the development of religious toleration in England. The book deserves to be widely read by early modern historians, as well as by literary scholars interested in the literature and culture of the English Revolution. David Loewenstein, Majorie and Lorin Tiefenthaler Professor of English, University of Wisconsin .not only an outstanding intellectual biography, but also a unique avenue into some of the major religious and political controversies of mid-seventeenth-century England William Spellman, Anglican and Episcopal History We have had to wait until 2006 for John Coffey to give us the definitive Goodwin. Already in his first book he had given us the definitive Rutherford - a very different sort of Puritan - and the merits of one study carry forward to the second. First is a beautifully lucid prose style, which makes even the prolix theological debates communicable to the general reader. Second, he never loses sight of the bigger political picture. Third, he is very good on Goodwin's university networking contacts.Fourth, he is good at showing how events alter ideologies.Not least of Coffey's services to scholarship is in the fiendishly difficult task of attributions of authorship. He has read everything by, and about Goodwin, and is the ideal person to take it on. William Lamont, Journal of Ecclesiastical History Coffey has established himself as the leading student of the political, doctrinal and ecclesiological positions of those who quarrelled with the established church and its clerical defenders. The present book will certainly bolster this reputation, as it is the first comprehensive intellectual biography of one of the more complex minds of a complex century.Coffey's meticulously researched and audaciously argued book should at the very least compel us to re-examine the tumult of the 1640s and to think again about the complexity of ecclesiastical polity. Charles Prior, Seventeenth-Century News A full, scholarly and clear account.an extremely valuable narrative, which casts wider light on the 1640s and 1650s. Tony Claydon, Archives * . *

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Book SynopsisA study of a contemporary witness to the transformation of post-Roman Britain into Anglo-Saxon England. Gildas's De excidio Britonum is a rare surviving contemporary source for the period which saw the beginning of the transformation of post-Roman Britain into Anglo-Saxon England. However, although the De excidio has received much scholarly attention over the last forty years, the value of the text as a primary source for this fascinating if obscure period of British history has been limited by our lack of knowledge concerning its historical and cultural context. In this new study the author challenges the assumption that the British Church was isolated from its Continental counterpart by Germanic settlement in Britain and seeks to establish a theological context for the De excidio within the framework of doctrinal controversy in the early Continental Church. The vexed question of the place of Pelagianism in the early British Church is re-investigated and a case is put forward for a radical new interpretation of Gildas's own theological stance. In addition, this study presents a detailed investigation of the literary structure of the De excidio and Gildas's use of verbal patterns, and argues that his use ofthe Bible as a literary model is at least as significant as his well-documented use of the literary techniques of Classical Latin. Dr KAREN GEORGE is currently a tutor at the Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.Trade ReviewAn important book. * SPECULUM *It will appeal to the theologian, historian and classicist [and] provides essential reading for those studying De Excidio Britonum or the early British Church. * ARTHURIANA *A tightly written new book which explores exciting new aspects of [Gildas's] major surviving work. [...] This is a useful new work which sets out new thinking on the structuring of Gildas's work and seeks to position him within the doctrinal debates of the day. It achieves both aims succinctly and opens interesting new avenues to explore. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *A tightly written new book on the subject of Gildas's De Excidio which explores exciting new aspects of this, his major surviving work. [...] This is a useful new work, therefore, which sets out new thinking on the structuring of Gildas's work and seeks to position him within the doctrinal debates of the day. It achieves both aims succinctly and opens interesting new avenues to explore, and that is an important service in itself, given the problematic nature of this most difficult of early British texts. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Preface Gildas and the Lamentations of Jeremiah The construction of the patterns in the DEB The Historia The Kings Gildas and the British Church The DEB and the Vita Germani Conclusions Epilogue List of sources and bibliography Appendix

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Book SynopsisDespite its size, Ely has always been one of the most wealthy and important dioceses in the country. The essays here focus on the careers of its bishops, with additional chapters on its buildings and holdings. The diocese of Ely, formed out of the huge diocese of Lincoln, was established in 1109 in St Etheldreda's Isle of Ely, and the ancient Abbey became Ely Cathedral Priory. Covering at first only the Isle and Cambridgeshire, it grewimmensely in 1837 with the addition of Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire and West Suffolk. The latter two counties left the diocese in 1914, but a substantial part of West Norfolk was added soon after. Until the nineteenth century Ely was one of the wealthiest dioceses in the country, and in every century there were notable appointments to the bishopric. Few of the bishops were promoted elsewhere; for most it was the culmination of their career, and manyhad made significant contributions, both to national life and to scholarship, before their preferment to Ely. They included men of the calibre of Lancelot Andrewes in the seventeenth century, the renowned book-collector John Moorein the eighteenth, and James Russell Woodford, founder of the Theological College, in the nineteenth. In essays each spanning about a century, experts in the field explore the lives and careers of its bishops, and their families and social contacts, examine their impact on the diocese, and their role in the wider Church in England. Other chapters consider such areas as the estates, the residences, the works of art and the library and archives. Overall, they chart the remarkable development over nine hundred years of one of the smallest, richest and youngest of the traditional dioceses of England. Peter Meadows is manuscript librarian in Cambridge University Library. Contributors: Nicholas Karn, Nicholas Vincent, Benjamin Thompson, Peter Meadows, Felicity Heal, Ian Atherton, Evelyn Lord, Frances Knight, Brian WatchornTrade ReviewThe administrative and political histories of the diocese set out in these chapters will make the book remarkably useful. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *A fine contribution and it is likely to prove an enduring one. * ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL *Table of ContentsForeword by the Bishop of Ely Editor's Preface - Peter Meadows The Twelfth century - Nicholas Karn The Thirteenth century - Nicholas Vincent The Fourteenth century - Benjamin Thompson The Fifteenth century - Peter Meadows Bishops of Ely, 1486-1559 - Felicity M Heal Bishops of Ely, 1559-1667 - Ian J Atherton Bishops of Ely, 1667-1748 - Evelyn Lord Bishops of Ely, 1748-1864 - Peter Meadows Bishops of Ely, 1864-1956 - Frances Knight The late Twentieth century - Brian Watchorn

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Book SynopsisProvides for a selection of texts, together with scholarly introductions, from one of the world's great private libraries, covering a period from Elizabeth I to the Church's involvement in homosexual law reform. This volume of the Church of England Record Society, published in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Lambeth Palace Library, is a tribute to the value of one of the world's great private libraries to the scholarly community and its importance for the history of the Church of England in particular. Thirteen historians, who have made considerable use of the Library in their research, have selected texts which together offer an illustration of the remarkable resources preserved by the Library for the period from the Reformation to the late twentieth century. A number of the contributions draw on the papers of the archbishops of Canterbury and bishops of London,which are among the most frequently used collections. Others come from the main manuscript sequence, including both materials originally deposited by Archbishop Sancroft and a manuscript published with the help of the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library in 2007. Another makes use of the riches to the papers of the Lambeth Conferences. Each text is accompanied by a substantial introduction, discussing its context and significance, and a full scholarly apparatus. The themes covered in the volume range from the famous dispute between Archbishop Grindal and Queen Elizabeth I, through the administration of the Church by Archbishop Laud and Archbishop Davidson's visit to the Western Frontduring World War I, to involvement of the Church in homosexual law reform.Trade ReviewPresents a lively and eclectic collection of documents, which have been thoughtfully selected and helpfully introduced. * CHURCHMAN *A fascinating insight into the richness of the archives at Lambeth Palace Library. * THEOLOGY *Many of the issues selected have resonance today, and many have compelling human interest. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *[A] splendid volume. the documents are reproduced with careful editorial skill and scholarly introductions. [...] It is a great record of Anglican attitudes, both official and personal; the prevailing tone is one of problems and difficulties faced and surmounted. [...] Its editors have gathered diverse and distant records into a volume that gives a unified picture of the development of our Church, beleaguered, but still in the service of God and the nation. * THE CHURCH TIMES *Table of ContentsThe prophesyings and the downfall and sequestration of Archbishop Edmund Grindal, 1576-1583 - Patrick Collinson 'Accurately and exquisitely made': George Abbot's Preface to the 1612 catalogue of Lambeth Palace Library - James Carley Annual accounts of the Church of England, 1632-1639 - Kenneth Fincham 'Popish Cut-Throats against us': papists, protestants and the problem of allegiance in eighteenth-century Ireland - Robert G. Ingram George III's recovery from madness celebrated: precedent and innovation in the observance of royal commemorations and celebrations - Stephen Taylor 'My unfortunate parish': Anglican urban ministry in Bethnal Green, 1809-c.1850 - Arthur Burns Charles James Blomfield, bishop of London, and church architecture and ordering - Michael Port William Dodsworth: an autobiographical memoir - Richard Palmer Archbishop Davidson's visit to the Western front, May 1916 - Michael Snape Lambeth 1920: The Appeal to All Christian People - Charlotte Methuen Archbishop Temple's offer of a Lambeth degree to Dorothy L Sayers - Peter Webster 'Improper and even unconstitutional': the involvement of the Church of England in the politics of the end of empire in Cyprus - Sarah Stockwell Homosexual law reform, 1953-1967 - Hugh McLeod

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Book SynopsisShows how some of the ideas about the afterlife presented by spiritualism helped to shape popular Christianity in the period. From the moment of its arrival in Britain in 1852, modern spiritualism became hugely popular among all sections of society. As well as offering mysterious and entertaining séance phenomena, spiritualism was underpinned by a beliefthat the living could communicate with the departed and even come to know what life after death looked like. This book, offering the first detailed account of the theology of spiritualism, examines what happened when the Church of England, itself already grappling with questions about the nature of the afterlife, met with such a vibrant and confident presentation. Although this period saw a gradual liberalising in the Church's own theology of heavenand hell this was not communicated to the wider public as long as sermons and liturgy remained largely framed in traditional language. Over time spiritualism, already embedded in common culture, explicitly influenced the thinkingof some Anglican clergy and implicitly began to permeate and shape popular Christianity - to the extent that even some of spiritualism's harshest critics made use of its colourful imagery. This study sets one significant aspect ofChristian doctrine alongside an attractive alternative and provides a fascinating example of the 'negotiation of belief', the way in which, in the interface between Church and culture, religious belief came to be refreshed and redefined. GEORGINA BYRNE is an ordained Anglican priest and currently Director of Ordinands for the Diocese of Worcester and a Residentiary Canon at Worcester Cathedral.Trade ReviewA fantastic book. * PSYCHICAL STUDIES *A detailed and interesting study. * CULTURAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY *Byrne's book offers a welcome and important addition to the field. Her sources are charming, poignant, and thought-provoking by turn and, combined with her clear writing style, make the book appropriate for students as well as specialists. * VICTORIAN STUDIES REVIEW *Byrne's historiography is sophisticated and provocative, and her survey of Spiritualism's history could stand alone as an excellent introduction to the movement. [It] adds substantially to our growing awareness that the history of modern belief is not adequately represented by a narrative of irrelevance and decline. * MELBOURNE HISTORICAL JOURNAL *Has much to recommend it as a contribution to the social history of the Church of England. [It is] is well researched and clearly structured, and it will intrigue anyone concerned with the often elusive boundary between English church and society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. * JOURNAL OF ANGLICAN STUDIES *Table of ContentsThe Church of England, spiritualism and the 'decline' of religious belief Spiritualism in context Spiritualism and English common culture The teachings of spiritualism The Church of England and the departed c1850-1900 The Church of England and spiritualism Re-imagining the afterlife in the twentieth century The negotiation of belief

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Book SynopsisOffers a new interpretation of Butler's theology and suggests that exploration of his methods may contribute to modern thinking about ethics, language, the Church as well as religion and science. Joseph Butler [1692-1752] is perhaps Britain's most powerful and original moral philosopher. He exercised a profound influence over the contemporary Protestant Churches, the English moralists and the Scottish philosophical schoolbut his theory of the "affections", grounded in Newtonian metaphysics and presenting an account of human psychology, also set the terms of engagement with questions of education, slavery, missions and even labour relations. Inthe nineteenth-century English-speaking world he was an authority of first resort for Evangelicals, Tractarians, philosophers, scientists, psychologists, economists, sociologists, lawyers and educationalists alike. He remains a key reference point for modern American and British philosophers, from Broad to Rawls and beyond. Many analyses of Butler, however, have been distorted by aggressively secular readings. This book is based on a comprehensive reassessment of his published work and the surviving manuscripts and archival materials. These are set within an account of his spiritual and intellectual development and his ministerial vocation, from the protracted and painful process of conforming to the Church of England to his initial observations on a social philosophy. Demonstrating that even The Analogy originated in liturgical preaching, this book offers a refreshed and detailed account of Butler's key terms - conscience, consciousness, identity, affections, charity, analogy, probability, tendency - and suggests that exploration of his methods may contribute to modern thinking about ethics, language, the role of the Church, and the religion and science debates. BOB TENNANT taught English Literature at the University of Sussex, spent many years as a senior manager in adult education, and was a trade union and political activist serving leading organisations at local, regional and national levels. He has written on political, economic and trade union matters for many newspapers and periodicals and is a founder of The British Pulpit Online, seeking to create an online catalogue and database of all printed British sermons from 1660 to 1901.Trade ReviewScholarly in the best sense of the term, and makes a compelling case that Butler's corpus deserves a second look from both philosophers and theologians. * CHURCH HISTORY *A much-needed book. * ANGLICAN & EPISCOPAL HISTORY *Should become foundational for future studies of Butler by showing that appreciating the way that Butler's thought is embedded in his life as an Anglican clergyman is indispensable to evaluating the riches of Butler's philosophy. Butler scholars writing from within multiple academic disciplines will profit from Tennant's meticulous scholarship. * ARCHIVES *An extremely valuable contribution to Butler studies, which goes a long way to building up a fuller understanding of Butler's thought. * HISTORY *Table of ContentsIntroduction Student Fifteen Sermons The Analogy Bishop Six Sermons The long nineteenth century Conclusion

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Book SynopsisAn analysis of the nature of apocalyptic and millennial beliefs that reveals concerns prominent in England in the early seventeenth century had not abated after 1660. Revelation Restored is a study of apocalyptic thought in the later seventeenth century in England. It explores an under-examined aspect of early modern British history: despite the prominence of millenarian beliefs in historians' explanations of the early modern English church and state up to 1660, little has been said about these convictions in the years following the Restoration. The examination of applications of prophetic language and interpretation to explain the events in England from 1660 to 1700 illustrates their continued capacity to comprehend ecclesiastical and political developments. The book demonstrates that, far from having disappeared from the intellectual landscape, apocalyptic ideas still held the potential to animate opinions in the mainstream of political debate in the later seventeenth century. These responses were outlets both for demonstrations of dissent and for endorsements of authorised powers in response to crises in authority and efforts at religious settlement. In addition, this book contends that any strict periodization that segregates the concerns of early seventeenth-century England fromthose of the later seventeenth century has been too sharply drawn. Analysis of the nature of apocalyptic and millennial beliefs reveals that the concerns prominent in England in the early seventeenth century had not abated after1660. WARREN JOHNSTON is an Assistant Professor at Algoma University in Ontario, Canada.Trade ReviewA significant new contribution to the historiography of the Restoration period, and of English eschatological thought more generally. * ANNUAL BULLETIN OF HISTORICAL LITERATURE *[A] detailed and worthy study. * SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NEWS *Exhaustive and persuasive. * ARCHIVES *A very informative book [that] provides a gold mine of texts and analyses of their meanings. * RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW *A convincing, engaging and meticulously researched study. [...] It admirably fills a significant gap in early modern scholarship. * BAPTIST QUARTERLY, vol. 45, July 2013 *A very good book. [...] Not only an important contribution to a vibrant debate but a welcome historiographical bridge, enabling students to assess the continuities and discontinuities of eighteenth-century English apocalypticism with those of the entire seventeenth century. * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW *An admirably balanced and comprehensive survey of apocalyptic thought. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *Table of ContentsIntroduction Conventions in Restoration apocalyptic interpretation The apocalypse, radicalism, and reaction in the early Restoration The apocalypse and moderate nonconformity The Anglican apocalypse The Popish Plot and apocalyptic expectation Apocalyptic thought and the Revolution of 1688-89 Conclusion: the apocalypse to 1700

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Book SynopsisThe monastic life, traditionally considered as an area of withdrawal from the world, is here shown to be shaped by metaphors of war, and to be actively engaged with battle in the world outside. An extremely interesting and important book... makes an important contribution to the history of medieval monastic spirituality in a formative period, whilst also fitting into wider debates on the origins, development and impactof ideas on crusading and holy war. Dr William Purkis, University of Birmingham Monastic culture has generally been seen as set apart from the medieval battlefield, as "those who prayed" were set apart from "those whofought". However, in this first study of the place of war within medieval monastic culture, the author shows the limitations of this division. Through a wide reading of Latin sermons, letters, and hagiography, she identifies a monastic language of war that presented the monk as the archetypal "soldier of Christ" and his life of prayer as a continuous combat with the devil: indeed, monks' claims to supremacy on the spiritual battlefield grew even louder asChurch leaders extended the title of "soldier of Christ" to lay knights and crusaders. So, while medieval monasteries have traditionally been portrayed as peaceful sanctuaries in a violent world, here the author demonstrates thatmonastic identity was negotiated through real and imaginary encounters with war, and that the concept of spiritual warfare informed virtually every aspect of life in the cloister. It thus breaks new ground in the history of European attitudes toward warfare and warriors in the age of the papal reform movement and the early crusades. Katherine Allen Smith is Assistant Professor of History, University of Puget Sound.Trade ReviewA major study. [...]Smith's brilliant volume is easily the best synthesis of knightly monastic culture in any language. [...]This book is a highly recommended masterpiece, a model of how historians should investigate the cross-cultural contacts between two elites, seemingly opposites, in the High Middle Ages. * CHURCH HISTORY *This important book is a welcome addition to the recent literature on the relations between medieval church and society. * THE CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW *Skilfully demonstrates that martial imagery was a major force in the creation of monastic culture. [...] Truly a remarkable achievement. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction Encountering War in the Scriptures and Liturgy Monks and Warriors: Negotiating Boundaries Spiritual Warfare: The History of an Idea to c.1200 Martial Imagery in Monastic Texts Warriors as Spiritual Exemplars Conclusion Appendix: The Loricati, c.1050-1250 Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe true importance of cathedrals during the Anglo-Norman period is here brought out, through an examination of the most important aspects of their history. Cathedrals dominated the ecclesiastical (and physical) landscape of the British Isles and Normandy in the middle ages; yet, in comparison with the history of monasteries, theirs has received significantly less attention. This volume helps to redress the balance by examining major themes in their development between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. These include the composition, life, corporate identity and memory of cathedral communities; the relationships, sometimes supportive, sometimes conflicting, that they had with kings (e.g. King John), aristocracies, and neighbouring urban and religious communities; the importance of cathedrals as centres of lordship and patronage; their role in promoting and utilizing saints' cults (e.g. that of St Thomas Becket); episcopal relations; and the involvement of cathedrals in religious and political conflicts, and in the settlement of disputes. A critical introduction locates medieval cathedrals in space and time, and against a backdrop of wider ecclesiastical change in the period. Contributors: Paul Dalton, Charles Insley, Louise J. Wilkinson, Ann Williams, C.P. Lewis, RichardAllen, John Reuben Davies, Thomas Roche, Stephen Marritt, Michael Staunton, Sheila Sweetinburgh, Paul Webster, Nicholas VincentTrade ReviewA useful and engaging volume with some original and important essays. * CHURCH HISTORY *Scholars pursuing topics that deal with religious communities, not only cathedrals, in the Anglo-Norman period will find much of interest in these well-crafted and carefully referenced essays. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Paul Dalton and Charles Insley and Louise J. Wilkinson The Dangers of Invention: The Sack of Canterbury, 1011, and the 'Theft' of Dunstan's Relics - Ann Williams Remembering Communities Past: Exeter Cathedral in the Eleventh Century - Charles Insley Communities, Conflict, and Episcopal Policy in the Diocese of Lichfield, 1050-1150 - C P Lewis The Acta archiepiscoporum Rotomagensium and Urban Ecclesiastical Rivalry in Eleventh-Century Rouen - Richard Allen Cathedrals and the Cult of Saints in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Wales - John Reuben Davies A Bishop and His Conflicts: Philip of Bayeux [1142-63] - Thomas Roche Ecclesiastical Responses to War in King Stephen's Reign: The Communities of Selby Abbey, Pontefract Priory and York Cathedral - Paul Dalton Secular Cathedrals and the Anglo-Norman Aristocracy - Stephen Marritt The Lives of Thomas Becket and the Church of Canterbury - Michael Staunton Caught in the Cross-Fire: Patronage and Institutional Politics in Late Twelfth-Century Canterbury - Sheila Sweetinburgh Crown, Cathedral, and Conflict: King John and Canterbury - Paul Webster The English Monasteries and their French Possessions - Nicholas Vincent

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Book SynopsisThis book challenges the recently established consensus that the trial was a carefully prepared and executed judicial process in which the judges were amenable to reasonable arguments. Thomas More's treason trial in 1535 is one of history's most famous court cases, yet never before have all the major documents been collected, translated, and analyzed by a team of legal and Tudor scholars. This edition serves asan important sourcebook and concludes with a 'docudrama' reconstructing the course of the trial based on these documents. Legal experts H. A. Kelly and R. H. Helmholz take different approaches to the legalities of this trial, and four experienced judges [including Justice of the Queen's Bench Sir Michael Tugendhat] discuss the trial with some disagreements - notably on the meaning and requirement of 'malice' called for in the Parliamentary Act of Supremacy. More's own accounts of his interrogations in prison are analyzed, and the trial's procedures are compared to and contrasted with 16th-century concepts of natural law and also modern judicial practices and principles. The book is a 'must read' not only for students of law and Tudor history but also for all concerned with justice and due process. As a whole, the book challenges Duncan Derrett's conclusions that the trial was conducted in accord with contemporary legal norms and that More was convicted only on the single charge of denying Parliament the power to declare Henry VIII Supreme Head of the English Church [testified to by Richard Rich] - a position that has been uniformly accepted by historians since 1964. HENRY ANSGAR KELLY is past Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA. LOUIS W. KARLIN is an attorney with the California Court of Appeal and Fellow of the Center for Thomas More Studies, University of Dallas. GERARD B. WEGEMER is Director of the Center for Thomas More Studies.Trade ReviewA valuable reference tool-all the more so as it includes twenty major documents, many otherwise not easily available and all translated into English, and a comprehensive bibliography.. [E]ssential reading for anyone interested in Thomas More's trial about which much remains controversial. * CERCLES *[A] clever and innovative volume. ... The essays are meticulously researched and legal jargon never gets in the way of historical understanding. Anyone interested in the particulars of one of the most renowned trials in history will find this book indispensable. * ANNUAL BULLETIN OF HISTORICAL LITERATURE *This is an intriguing and often insightful study. [It] is an important contribution to Morean studies for both scholars and students. * SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL *Table of ContentsA Procedural Review of Thomas More's Trial - Henry Ansgar Kelly Natural Law and the Trial of Thomas More - R.H. Helmholz A Guide to Thomas More's Trial for Modern Lawyers - Louis W. Karlin and David R. Oakley Thomas More's Three Prison Letters Reporting on His Interrogations - Elizabeth McCutcheon Judicial Commentary on Thomas More's Trial: Preliminary Comment and Round Table - Sidney Fitzwater and Edith Hollan Jones and Jennie D. Latta and Michael Tugendhat Documents Thomas More's Trial: Docudrama

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Book SynopsisPenitential practice in the Holy Roman Empire 900-1050, examined through records in church law, the liturgy, monastic and other sources. This study examines all forms of penitential practice in the Holy Roman Empire under the Ottonian and Salian Reich, c.900 - c.1050. This crucial period in the history of penance, falling between the Carolingians' codification of public and private penance, and the promotion of the practice of confession in the thirteenth century, has largely been ignored by historians. Tracing the varieties of penitential practice recorded in church law, the liturgy, monastic practice, narrative and documentary sources, Dr Hamilton's book argues that many of the changes previously attributed to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries can be found earlier in the tenth and early eleventh centuries. Whilst acknowledging that there was a degree of continuity from the Carolingian period, she asserts that the period should be seen as having its own dynamic. Investigating the sources for penitential practice by genre, sheacknowledges the prescriptive bias of many of them and points ways around the problem in order to establish the reality of practice in this area at this time. This book thus studies the Church in action in the tenth and eleventhcenturies, the reality of relations between churchmen, and between churchmen and the laity, as well as the nature of clerical aspirations. It examines the legacy left by the Carolingian reformers and contributes to our understanding of pre-Gregorian mentalities in the period before the late eleventh-century reforms. SARAH HAMILTON teaches in the Department of History, University of Exeter.Trade ReviewRichly documented study. * CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW *Stimulating study changing our perceptions of medieval penance. * HISTORY *A thoroughly researched book, well documenetd and with many thought-provoking ideas, and it deserves a warm welcome. * SPECULUM *

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Book SynopsisThe reports of the surveyors of Westminster Abbey in the nineteenth century provide a treasure trove of information on this most important building. `A fundamental resource for anyone interested in the Abbey's architecture and contents.' Dr Richard Mortimer. The papers of the nineteenth-century Surveyors of the Fabric are an essential resource for anyone interestedin the building and contents of Westminster Abbey. The Surveyors, Edward Blore, George Gilbert Scott and his son J .O. Scott, J. L. Pearson and J. T. Micklethwaite, wrote an annual report describing their activities, and these arethe core of the volume, supplemented with letters and other papers. Christine Reynolds, the Abbey's Assistant Keeper of Muniments, adds invaluable notes from many other sources in the archives to round out a fascinating account of interventions in the stonework and monuments of the most historically significant church in England. On the way we learn what Gilbert Scott thought of William Morris, what the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings thought of J. L. Pearson's reconstruction of the north rose window, and the dim view of Pearson taken by his successor Micklethwaite. Richard Halsey's introduction sets these eminent Victorians and their work at Westminster in the wider context of the great age of cathedral restoration.Trade ReviewA highly accomplished edition. The text is clear, the index is excellent, and the critical apparatus is extremely helpful. [...] This is a valuable contribution to the history of the Abbey. One can only hope that it prompts archivists at other cathedrals to prepare comparable publications. * ARCHIVES *A most important source book for the history of the fabric of the abbey in the nineteenth century. * CHURCH MONUMENTS *[A] fascinating compilation which throws valuable new light on important aspects of the Gothic Revival. * ECCLESIOLOGY TODAY *Will be of great interest to students of Westminster Abbey. * FRIENDS OF THE CITY CHURCHES NEWSLETTER *A book of surprisingly gripping narrative force to anyone who enjoys Westminster Abbey. Christopher Howse, * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Table of ContentsAbbreviations and Bibliography Introduction: The Nineteenth-Century Surveyors of Westminster Abbey Edward Blore Sir George Gilbert Scott John Oldrid Scott John Loughborough Pearson John Thomas Micklethwaite

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