In these vivid and approachable essays Eamon Duffy engages with some of the central aspects of Western religion in the thousand years between the decline of pagan Rome and the rise of the Protestant Reformation.
In the process he opens windows on the vibrant and multifaceted beliefs and practices by which medieval people made sense of their world: the fear of death and the impact of devastating pandemic, holy war against Islam and the invention of the blood libel against the Jews, provision for the afterlife and the continuing power of the dead over the living, the meaning of pilgrimage and the evolution of Christian music.
Duffy unpicks the stories of the Golden Legend and Yale University's mysterious Voynich manuscript, discusses the cult of 'St' Henry VI and explores childhood in the Middle Ages. Accompanying the book are a collection of full colour plates which further demonstrate the richness of late medieval religion.
In this highly readable collection Eamon Duffy once more challenges existing scholarly narratives and sheds new light on the religion of Britain and Europe before and during the Reformation.
By:
Professor Eamon Duffy
Imprint: Continuum
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 153mm,
Weight: 722g
ISBN: 9781472953230
ISBN 10: 1472953231
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 01 July 2018
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List 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
Professor Eamon Duffy is Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow and former President of Magdalene College. His previous books include Reformation Divided, Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition and The Stripping of the Altars.
Reviews for Royal Books and Holy Bones: Essays in Medieval Christianity
It 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 *
