History 2P91: Introduction and Pre-Reformation Christianity

This week's topic outlines the course and its objectives on the one hand, and on the other serves to contextualize the rest of the course with a discussion about European Christianity before the Reformation.
There are certain themes we need to be aware of:
Who or what is the Church - is it an institution or a community? A group of believers? Who is in charge?

Additional Reading Lists

• A.D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England (: , 1995).
• Caroline W. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
• Jeremy Dimmick, James Simpson & Nicolette Zeeman, 'Introduction', in Images, Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Late Medieval England, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), .
• Eamon Duffy, 'Devotion to the Crucifix and Related Images in England on the Eve of the Reformation', in Bilder und Bildersturm im Spätmittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Robert W. Scribner (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990), 21-36.
• Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
• B. Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West (London: Edward Arnold, 1986).
• C. Harper-Bill, The Pre-Reformation Church in England (: , 1989).
• P. Heath, English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation (London: Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1969).
• J. Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
• G. Holmes, The Later Middle Ages 1272-1485 (New York: Norton & Co., 1962).
• R. Horrox & W.M. Ormrod ed., A social history of England, 1200-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
• K. Kamerick, Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006).
• R. Kieckhefer, 'The Holy and Unholy: Sainthood, Witchcraft, and Magic in Late Medieval Europe,' Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1994): 355-385.
• D. Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought, ed. D. Luscombe and C. Brooke (Harlow: Longman, 1997).
• I.C. Levy, A companion to John Wyclif: late medieval theologian (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006).
• Alastair E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
• R. Newhauser, In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2005).
• Heiko A. Oberman, ''Facientibus Quod in Se Est. Deus non Denegat Gratiam': Robert Holcot, O.P. and the Beginning of Luther's Theology,' Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962): 317-342.
• Heiko A. Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1986, repr.1992).
• Steven E. Ozment, Religion and Culture in the Renaissance and Reformation (: , 1989).
• S.E. Ozment ed., The Reformation in Medieval Perspective (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971).
• R.A. Powell, 'Margery Kempe: An Exemplar of Late Medieval Piety,' The Catholic Historical Review 89 no.1 (2003): 1-23.
• G. Rosser, 'Communities of Parish and Guild in the Late Middle Ages', in Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay R, ed. S.J. Wright (London: , 1988), 29-55.
• Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
• Miri Rubin, The Hollow Crown (London: Penguin, 2005).
• Robert W. Scribner, 'Elements of Popular Belief', in Handbook of European History 1400-1600, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 231-262.
• Robert W. Scribner, 'Popular Piety and Modes of Visual Perception in Late-Medieval and Reformation Germany,' Journal of Religious History 15 no.4 (1989): 448-469.
• M. Spufford, 'The Importance of Religion in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', in The World of Rural Dissenters, 1520-1725, ed. Idem (Cambridge: , 1995), 1-102.
• R.N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989).
• R.N. Swanson, 'Problems of the Priesthood in Pre-Reformation England,' English Historical Review 105 no.417 (1990): 845-869.
• R.N. Swanson ed., Promissory notes on the treasury of merits: indulgences in late medieval Europe (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006).
• N.P. Tanner, The Church in Late Medieval Norwich (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1984).
• H. van Os, The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe 1300-1500 (London: Merrel Holberton, 1994).
• R. Whiting, The Blind Devotion of the People (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

•  A Guide to Thirteenth Century Theologians (http://home.sandiego.edu/~macy/index.html)
•  Middle English Sermons (http://www.hull.ac.uk/middle_english_sermons/)
•  The Age of Gothic Cathedrals (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intdept/pnp/cathedrals.html)