Heresy In The Later Middle Ages

The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages has been widely recognized as the standard work on the subject in any language. Robert E. Lerner examines this fourteenth-century European heresy as it appeared in its own age. He concludes that the Free-Spirit movement was not a tightly organized sect of anarchistic deviants, but rather a spectrum of belief that emphasized voluntary poverty and quietist mysticism.

More than seventy documents, ranging in date from the early eleventh century to the early fourteenth century and representing both orthodox and heretical viewpoints are included.

The study of heresy and heterodoxy and of belief in magic, witchcraft and the devil has in the past 25 years made significant advances in our understanding of art and iconography, ideas, mentality and belief, and ordinary life and popular imagination in the patristic and medieval periods. At the forefront of research into this aspect of medieval intellectual history has been Jeffrey B. Russell, whose numerous books and articles have opened important new paths in the field. To mark his retirement 17 established and emerging scholars from Europe and North America - historians of art, the church, religions, and ideas - have contributed papers on the many areas which Russell has influenced. Topics dealt with include elves, the Christians apocrypha, mysticism, sexuality, heresies and heresiologies, apocalyptic tracts, astrology, hell, and other Christian encounters with non-believers. These essays are offered as tribute to the deep impact that Russel has had on medieval studies. Contributors include: Alan Bernstein, Richard Emmerson, Alberto Ferreiro, Neil Forsyth, Abraham Friessen, Karen Jolly, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Richard Kieckhefer, Beverly M. Kienzle, Garry Macy, Bernard McGinn, Edward Peters, Cheryl Rigs, Larry J. Simon, Laura Smoller, Catherine B. Tkacz, and John Tolan.

Collective volume exploring connections between literacy and heresy in late medieval Europe.

Some of the most portentous events in medieval history—the Cathar crusade, the persecution and mass burnings of heretics, the papal inquisition—fall between 1000 and 1250, when the Catholic Church confronted the threat of heresy with force. Moore’s narrative focuses on the motives and anxieties of elites who waged war on heresy for political gain.

Liberty of conscience and freedom of thought are twin, core components of modern life in societies across the world. The ability to pursue one?s vision of the right and the good, coupled with liberty to pursue individual reason and enlightenment, helped produce so much of modern life that we may be apt to forget that libertarian philosophy was not dictated by Nature. Freethought and Freedom surveys the long history of religious and intellectual liberty, exploring their key ideas along the way.