This is the first one-volume survey in English of religion and devotion in Europe between 1215 and 1515. Intended primarily as a student textbook, it provides essential background for a proper appreciation of medieval Western society. Avoiding the history of institutional structures, the book concentrates on the spirituality that the medieval Church sought to promulgate and control. Its thematic structure provides accessible surveys of major themes, and addresses recent debates about key aspects of medieval Catholicism.

The election of both Urban VI and Clement VII to the papacy in 1378, by the same body of cardinals, presented the church with an apparently insoluble constitutional difficulty. Dr Swanson examines the reaction to this situation from a hitherto unconsidered perspective: that of the universities to whom Europe turned to formulate the theories which would solve the problem. He examines the attempts by the academics to gain support for their various schemes and shows how these produced conflict at various levels: locally, between factions within individual universities; nationally, between rival...

Indulgences played a major role in medieval 'strategies for eternity', easing the journey through Purgatory to Heaven after death. However, theological attacks during the Reformation and the subsequent Protestant rejection of indulgences have given them a poor reputation, compounding the effect of the fourteenth-century satires by Chaucer and Langland of the pardoners who ensured their widespread distribution. This book examines indulgences in late medieval England and it offers an extensive and authoritative re-evaluation of their role in England's religious, social and economic life between...

This volume surveys the wide range of cultural and intellectual changes in western Europe in the period c.1050-c.1250
An up-to-date survey of previous historical work in this field, the book provides a useful starting point for those new to this period.

Although Catterick himself was continually absent fom his diocese, a full register was kept of the activities of his vicar-general. Catterick's register is the first from this diocese to be printed by the Canterbury and York Society.

Indulgences played a major role in medieval 'strategies for eternity', easing the journey through Purgatory to Heaven after death. However, theological attacks during the Reformation and the subsequent Protestant rejection of indulgences have given them a poor reputation, compounding the effect of the fourteenth-century satires by Chaucer and Langland of the pardoners who ensured their widespread distribution. This book examines indulgences in late medieval England and it offers an extensive and authoritative re-evaluation of their role in England's religious, social and economic life between...