This collection aims to explore new perspectives on the British and Irish conventual, mendicant and monastic movements in mainland Europe and rediscover their roles and wider impact within early modern European Catholicism. Building on recent scholarship, the book addresses a historiographical imbalance, which has led to an over-emphasis being placed on the role of the Society of Jesus in the development of British and Irish Catholicism following the Protestant Reformation. The stable comm...

Although the young Edward VI's death in 1553 led to resounding defeat for his Protestant allies, his reign has a significance out of all proportion to its brief six-year span. For during its course England's rulers let loose an explosive form of Christianity within the realm. In this lavishly illustrated book, MacCulloch underlines the significance of Edward's turbulent and neglected reign. As well as the young king's life and beliefs he takes a fresh look at the ruthless politicians who j...

The reign of Mary Tudor has been remembered as an era of sterile repression, when a reactionary monarch launched a doomed attempt to reimpose Catholicism on an unwilling nation. Above all, the burning alive of more than 280 men and women for their religious beliefs seared the rule of “Bloody Mary” into the protestant imagination as an alien aberration in the onward and upward march of the English-speaking peoples.In this controversial reassessment, the renowned reformation historian...

In 1144, the mutilated body of William of Norwich, a young apprentice leatherworker, was found abandoned outside the city's walls. The boy bore disturbing signs of torture, and a story spread that it was a ritual murder, performed by Jews in imitation of the Crucifixion as a mockery of Christianity. The outline of William's tale eventually gained currency far beyond Norwich, and the idea that Jews engaged in ritual murder became firmly rooted in the European imagination. E.M. Rose's engagi...

Women in Medieval Europe explores the key areas of female experience in the later medieval period, from peasant women to Queens. It considers the women of the later Middle Ages in the context of their social relationships during a time of changing opportunities and activities, so that by 1500 the world of work was becoming increasingly restricted to women. The chapters are arranged thematically to show the varied roles and lives of women in and out of the home, covering topics suc...

The men and women that followed the sixth-century customs of Benedict of Nursia (c.480-c.547) formed the most enduring, influential, numerous and widespread religious order of the Latin middle ages. Their liturgical practice, andtheir acquired taste for learning, served as a model for the medieval church as a whole: while new orders arose, they took some of their customs, and their observant and spiritual outlook, from the Regula Benedicti. The Benedictines may also be counted amo...

As an authority on the religion of medieval and early modern England, Professor Eamon Duffy is preeminent.In his revisionist masterpiece The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy opened up new areas of research and entirely fresh perspectives on the origin and progress of the English Reformation. Duffy's focus has always been on the practices and institutions through which ordinary people lived and experienced their religion, but which the Protestant reformers ab...

This book shows King James VI and I, king of Scotland and England, in an unaccustomed light. Long regarded as inept, pedantic, and whimsical, James is shown here as an astute and far-sighted statesman whose reign was focused on achieving a permanent union between his two kingdoms and a peaceful and stable community of nations throughout Europe.

More than just a single-minded warrior-king, Henry V comes to life in this fresh account as a gifted ruler acutely conscious of spiritual matters and his subjects’ welfareShakespeare’s centuries-old portrayal of Henry V established the king’s reputation as a warmongering monarch, a perception that has persisted ever since. But in this exciting, thoroughly researched volume a different view of Henry emerges: a multidimensional ruler of great piety, a hands-on govern...

Did women really constitute a `fourth estate' in medieval society and, if so, in what sense? In this wide-ranging study Shulamith Shahar considers this and the whole question of the varying attitudes to women and their status in western Europe between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries.

The social realities of old age have undergone profound changes since the middle ages. This study shows, however, that the images, attitudes and expectations of old people have changed for less.Shulamith Shahar shows how the status and social participation of the elderly varied according to gender, social stratum, economic resources, position, level of functioning, and personality, as well as according to regional custom.The book offers a broad cultural history of old age i...

Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of The debate on the English Reformation combines a discussion of successive historical approaches to the English Reformation with a critical review of recent debates in the area, offering a major contribution to modern historiography as well as to Reformation studies. It explores the way in which successive generations have found the Reformation relevant to their own times and have in the process rediscovered, redefined and rewritten its s...