Description
Book SynopsisIn 1992, Eamon Duffy created a sensation in Reformation studies by publishing his groundbreaking book The Stripping of the Altars. In it he demonstrated the health of late medieval religion in England and that the thesis hitherto accepted that the Reformation came to wipe away a corrupt and rotten Church was essentially false.
In this book follow-up to The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy makes further soundings in late medieval religion, but drills down to the particular and avoids any wide historical sweep. Among the topics he covers are Purgatory, The Black Death, Adoration of the Mother of God, and Heresy. By his meticulous research, Duffy has discovered many original documents and records during his academic career, proving that his thesis about the Reformation is basically irrefutable.
This book is illustrated by a small collection of full color plates which further demonstrate the richness of late medieval religion.
Trade ReviewIt is 26 years since Eamon Duffy changed the way that readers of history looked at England on the eve of the Reformation, through his
The Stripping of the Altars. Many of the essays here also challenge easy assumptions. All of them are written with a clarity and fluency, humour and humanity that make reading them a pleasure. -- Christopher Howse * Daily Telegraph *
Erudite but never unapproachable and laced with a dry wit, [Duffy's] essays are essential reading for those with an interest in how people in the past expressed their faith * Sunday Times *
Tremendous … This is a book for the general reader , spiced throughout with Duffy’s profound scholarly understanding of the giant subjects with which each essay grapples * Church Times *
[Duffy's] extraordinary depth of knowledge is, throughout these essays, lit for his reader by his sense not of what medieval Christians thought but of what they believed, felt, feared, and, above all, did ... [his] learning and judgement, and the clarity of his prose, have done a great deal to counter the lazy, but alas, still common assumption that "medieval" is a synonym for "barbarous". * TLS *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction: Royal Books and Holy Bones
BOOKS 1 Early Christian Impresarios 2 Books Held by Kings 3 The
Golden Legend 4 Secret Knowledge - or a Hoax? 5 The Psalms and Lay Piety
CRISES AND MOVEMENTS 6 Plague and Historical Memory 7 The Rise of Sacred Song 8 Holy Terror 9 The Cradle Will Rock: Histories of Childhood
SAINTS 10 Blood Libel: The Murder of William of Norwich 11 Sacred Bones and Blood 12 Treasures of Heaven: Saints and Their Relics 13 St Erkenwald 14 The Cult of 'St' Henry IV 15 The Dynamics of Pilgrimage in the Late Middle Ages 16 'Lady, Pray Thy Son for Me': Prayer to the Virgin in the Late Middle Ages
ON THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION 17 Provision Against Purgatory: Wingfield College, Suffolk 18 Monasticism and the Religion of the People: Crowland Abbey 19 The Four Latin Doctors: in the Late Middle Ages 20 The Reformation and the Alasbastermen 21 Brush for Hire: Lucas Cranach the Elder
Acknowledgements Notes Index A Note on the Author Plate Section
