This book offers a fresh interpretation of the relationship between the church, society and religion across five centuries of change. Andrew Brown examines how the teachings of an increasingly universal Church were applied at a local level and how social change shaped the religious practices of the laity. His approach encompasses the structures of corporate religion, the devotional practices surrounding cults and saints, the effects of literacy (not least on the development of heresy), and how gender, class and political power affected and fragmented the expression of religion.

This book offers a fresh interpretation of the relationship between the church, society and religion across five centuries of change. Andrew Brown examines how the teachings of an increasingly universal Church were applied at a local level and how social change shaped the religious practices of the laity. His approach encompasses the structures of corporate religion, the devotional practices surrounding cults and saints, the effects of literacy (not least on the development of heresy), and how gender, class and political power affected and fragmented the expression of religion.

Public religious practice lay at the heart of civic society in late medieval Europe. In this illuminating study, Andrew Brown draws on the rich and previously little-researched archives of Bruges, one of medieval Europe's wealthiest and most important towns, to explore the role of religion and ceremony in urban society. The author situates the religious practices of citizens their investment in the liturgy, commemorative services, guilds and charity within the contexts of Bruges' highly diversified society and of the changes and crises the town experienced. Focusing on the religious...