Description
Book SynopsisUsing quantitative and qualitative methods to re-evaluate the role of late medieval church courts, Tyler Lange examines the relatively common occurrence of excommunicated debtors. This reveals how day-to-day credit functioned in the late Middle Ages, what debt meant to contemporaries, and how believers understood the Church.
Trade Review'Thanks to an impressive data base derived from sampling three church courts (Chartres, Paris and Montvilliers) including more than 11,000 sentences, Tyler Lange provides us with a useful empirical presentation of the issue, depicting the rise and the fall of excommunication for debt from 1300 to 1600.' Jerome Loiseau, European History Quarterly
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Church courts and credit; 2. The supply of ecclesiastical justice; 3. Case studies: demand for ecclesiastical justice; 4. A crisis of credit? The Reformation and the early modern world; Conclusion: from church to market; Bibliography; Index.
