What did people really believe in the Middle Ages? Much of our sense of the medieval period has come down to us from the writings of the learned: the abbots, priors, magnates, scholastic theologians and others who between them, and across Christendom, controlled the machinery of church and state. For G R Evans too much emphasis has been placed on a governing elite and too little on those - the great mass of the semi-literate and illiterate, and the emergent middle classes - who stood outsi...

The intertwined stories of the great English 'Varsity' universities have many colourful aspects in common, yet each also boasts elements of true distinctiveness. So while the histories of Oxford and Cambridge are both characterised by seething town and gown rivalries, doctrinal conflicts and heretical outbursts, shifts of political and religious allegiance and gripping stories of individual heroism and defiance, they are also narratives of difference and distinctiveness. G R Evans explores...

The creation of a new history of the Church at the beginning of the third millennium is an ambitious but necessary project. Perhaps nowhere is it needed more than in re-describing the Church's development - its life and its thinking - in the period that followed the end of the 'early Church' in antiquity. The cultural, social and political dominance of Christendom in what we now call 'the West', from about 600-1300, made the Christian Church a shaper of the modern world in respects which g...

From the earliest centuries of the church, asceticism and the contemplative life have been profoundly important aspects of western Christianity. And in assessing the glories of western civilization, perhaps the best place to start is within medieval monastic institutions, not outside of them. For while monasteries withdrew from the main currents of their societies, until the rise of universities in the 12th century they provided fertile soil and sanctuary to the liberal arts and sciences a...

Did the universe start with a bang, or has it existed always? Was there a supernatural being behind it all, or just mindless forces? The beginning of things has forever tested the limits of curiosity, and such questions have both challenged atheists and inspired believers. Ancient cultures resorted to myth and symbolism to tell vibrant stories about human origins. Later civilizations added philosophical and scientific explanations: but these are not definitive. The nature and meaning of ex...

A generation or so ago, the Inklings - C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams - met regularly in an Oxford pub to encourage one another in the writing of fictions set in fantasy worlds... Philip Pullman's Gyptians live on an Oxford canal and it is from Oxford that his characters gain entry to another world... It is true that Oxford is a world to itself, a village where everyone stops in the Broad or the High to exchange local gossip... The visitor walking among the golden colleges...

Mystery surrounds virtually every aspect of the Templar story, from their origins in the aftermath of the First Crusade, through their rise to supreme wealth and power - dominating medieval Europe for nearly two centuries - to their abrupt and dramatic suppression. Ferociously punished for alleged heresy and depravity at the beginning of the 14th century, their story is believed to have ended there, merely an interesting historical footnote. But did they, as many now believe, survive in se...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.The Reformation was a long struggle of ideas between the established Catholic Church and the questioning of faith brought about by the Renaissance in Western Europe. Started by Martin Luther in 1517, religious dissidence spread across Europe throughout the sixteenth century, causing wars, migration and disunity. By 1648 Henry VIII’s desire for divorce led him to break with the Catholic Church in Rome and form the Church of Engla...

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning history of the Reformation—from the New York Times bestselling author of ChristianityAt a time when men and women were prepared to kill—and be killed—for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars...

Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. Flourishing principally in the Languedoc and Italy, the Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting and non-violence. They believed themselves to be the heirs of the true heritage of Christianity going back to apostolic times, and completely rejected the Catholic Church and all its trappings, regarding it as the Church of Satan; Cathar services and ceremonies, by co...

The great war on heresy obsessed medieval Europe in the centuries after the first millennium. R. I. Moore's vivid narrative focuses on the motives and anxieties of those who declared and conducted the war: what were the beliefs and practices they saw as heretical? How might such beliefs have arisen? And why were they such a threat?In western Europe at AD 1000 heresy had barely been heard of. Yet within a few generations accusations had become commonplace and institutions were being set up ...

A fascinating history of the growth in monastic and papal power that preceded the Crusades—excerpted from Diarmaid MacCulloch’s award-winning New York Times bestseller, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.A product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years stretches from the Greek Platonists and the origins of the Hebrew Bible to the present and ...