A Companion to Isidore of Seville presents nineteen chapters from leading international scholars on Isidore of Seville (d. 636), the most prominent bishop of the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania in the seventh century and one of the most prolific authors of early medieval western Europe. Introductory studies establish the political, religious and familial contexts in which Isidore operated, his key works are then analysed in detail, as are some of the main themes that run throughout his corpus. Isidore's influence extended across the entire Middle Ages and into the early modern period in...

The eighth-century English missionary and church reformer Boniface was a highly influential figure in early medieval Europe. His career in what is now Germany, France, and the Netherlands is attested in an exceptional number of textual sources: a correspondence of 150 letters, Latin poetry, church council records, and other documents. Numerous saints’ lives and modern devotional materials further reveal how he was and is remembered by the religious communities that claim him as a foundational figure. This volume comprises the latest scholarship on Boniface and his fellow missionaries,...

The Hussites, as the Bohemian reformists have come to be called, became one of the most vocal and influential reform movements of the late Middle Ages, with significance for the reformations of the sixteenth century and later. They represented an interchange between “town and gown” that was largely unprecedented in medieval Europe. Scholarship on the Hussites has a long and distinguished tradition, and current studies must continually contend with a historiography that is implicated in the nationalism, confessionalism, and politics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume...

A Companion to Medieval Rules and Customaries offers an introduction to the rules and customaries of the main religious orders in medieval Europe: Benedictine, Cistercian, Carthusian, Augustinian, Premonstratensian, Templar, Hospitaller, Teutonic, Dominican, Franciscan, and Carmelite. As well as introducing the early history and spirituality of the orders, scholars survey the central topics – organization, doctrine, morality, liturgy, and culture, as documented by these primary sources. Contributors are: James Clark, Tom Gaens, Jean-François Godet-Calogeras, Holly Grieco, Emilia...

This companion volume seeks to trace the development of ideas relating to death, burial, and the remembrance of the dead in Europe between ca. 1300 and 1700. Examining attitudes to death from a range of disciplinary perspectives, it synthesises current trends in scholarship, challenging the old view that the Black Death and the Protestant Reformations fundamentally altered ideas about death. Instead, it shows how people prepared for death; how death and dying were imagined in art and literature; and how practices and beliefs appeared, disappeared, changed, or strengthened over time as...

A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva describes the course of the Protestant Reformation in the city of Geneva from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It explores the beginnings of reform in the city, the struggles the reformers encountered when seeking to teach, minister to, educate, and discipline the inhabitants of Geneva, and the methods employed to overcome these obstacles. It examines Geneva’s relations with nearby cities and how Geneva handled the influx of immigrants from France. The volume focuses on the most significant aspects of life in the city, examines major...

A Companion to the English Dominican Province offers an account of Dominican activities in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales from their arrival in 1221 until their dissolution at the Reformation. Over the three centuries covered in this volume, the Friars Preachers not only devoted themselves to the cure of souls via preaching and hearing confessions, but they also represented English kings on diplomatic missions, influenced politics and society, and contributed to cultural, intellectual, and religious life across the British Isles. Contributors include: Janet Burton, Alexander...

A Companion to Religious Minorities in Early Modern Rome investigates the lives and stories of the many groups and individuals in Rome, between 1500 and approximately 1750, who were not Roman (Latin) Catholic. It shows how early modern Catholic people and institutions in Rome were directly influenced by their interactions with other religious traditions. This collection reveals the significant impact of Protestants, Muslims, Jews, and Eastern Rite Christians; the influence of the many transient groups and individual travelers who passed through the city; the unique contributions of converts...

This Companion to the Spanish Scholastics offers a much-needed survey of the entire field of early modern Spanish scholastic thought. The volume introduces main themes and contexts of scholastics inquiry (theology, philosophy, ethics, politics, economics, law, science and the senses) through close examination of a wide range of texts, debates, methods, and authors, as well as in-depth discussion of the relevant literature. Each chapter includes a useful bibliography and serves as point of departure for future research. The volume not only draws the sum of existing research, but also...

This book presents customized chapters by 28 authors on the evolution of the Scottish Reformation from the late 1520s to 1638. The book has broad thematic frameworks into which the specific chapters fit. There are 10 such major themes, namely: external and internal pressures for change; breakthrough and revolution; theological and philosophical formulations; varieties of dissemination and implementation; humanism and higher education; legal systems and moral order; appropriations in literary and popular cultures; outsiders; evolution of new national identity; historiographical traditions and...