HIS 240 The Medieval World

With the arrival of Clement V in 1309, seven popes ruled the Western Church from Avignon until 1378. Joëlle Rollo-Koster traces the compelling story of the transplanted papacy in Avignon, the city the popes transformed into their capital. Through an engaging blend of political and social history, she argues that we should think more positively about the Avignon papacy, with its effective governance, intellectual creativity, and dynamism. It is a remarkable tale of an institution growing and defending its prerogatives, of people both high and low who produced and served its needs, and of the city they built together.

This narrative history masterfully weaves together the sweeping events surrounding the so-called "Babylonian captivity" of the popes into the broader story of 14th-century Europe, a turbulent time of transition between Middle Ages and Renaissance when seven successive popes resided in Avignon in the south of France.

This beautifully illustrated book is the most ambitious one-volume survey of the Reformation yet. A timely and much-needed account, it looks at every aspect of the Reformation world and considers new historical research which has led to the expansion of the subject both thematically and geographically. The strength of The Reformation Worldis its breadth and originality, with material drawn from many different countries, including archival material only recently made available to scholars in central Europe.

Europe's Reformations stands apart from previous histories by giving due attention to each of these spheres of life and to their complex relationships with each other. Tracy illustrates how Reformation-era religious conflicts titled the balance in church - state relations in favor of the latter, so that the secular power was able to dictate the doctrinal loyalty of its subjects.

Examining the course of Western intellectual history between 400-1400 this text is arranged in two parts. The first surveys the comparative modes of thought and varying success of Byzantine, Latin-Christian and Muslim cultures, and the second takes the reader from the 11th century revival of learning to the high Middle Ages and beyond, the period in which the vibrancy of Western intellectual culture enabled it to stamp its imprint well beyond the frontiers of Christendom.

Contents: Michael Cerularius -- The churches and the crusades -- The fourth crusade -- The date and nature of teh schism