In Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England, Andrew Reeves examines how laypeople in a largely illiterate and oral culture learned the basic doctrines of the Christian religion. Although lay religious life is often assumed to have been a tissue of ignorance and superstition, this study shows basic religious training to have been broadly available to laity and clergy alike. Reeves examines the nature, availability and circulation of sermon manuscripts as well as guidebooks to Christian teachings written for both clergy and literate laypeople. He shows that under the direction of a vigorous and reforming episcopate and aided by the preaching of the friars, clergy had a readily available toolkit to instruct their lay flocks.

Examines how thirteenth-century clergymen used pastoral care - preaching, sacraments and confession - to increase their parishioners' religious knowledge, devotion and expectations.

The thirteenth century was a dynamic period in intellectual history which witnessed the establishment of the first universities, most famously at Paris and Oxford. At these and other major European centres of learning, English-born Franciscans came to hold prominent roles both in the university faculties of the arts and theology and in the local studia across Europe that were primarily responsible for training Franciscans. This volume explores the contributions to scholarship of some of the leading English Franciscans or Franciscan associates from this period, including Roger Bacon, Adam Marsh, John Pecham, Thomas of Yorke, Roger Marston, Robert Grosseteste, Adam of Exeter, Richard Rufus of Cornwall, and Bartholomew of England. Through focussed studies of these figures’ signature ideas, contributions will provide a basis for drawing comparisons between the English Franciscan school and others that existed at the time, most famously at Paris.

In this book Philippa Hoskin offers an account of the pastoral theory and practice of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253, within his diocese. Grosseteste has been considered as an eminent medieval philosopher and theologian, and as a bishop focused on pastoral care, but there has been no attempt to consider how his scholarship influenced his pastoral practice. Making use of Grosseteste’s own writings – philosophical and theological as well as pastoral and administrative – Hoskin demonstrates how Grosseteste’s famous interventions in his diocese grew from his own theory of personal obligation in pastoral care as well as how his personal involvement in his diocese could threaten well-developed clerical and lay networks.

A lively exploration of the medieval and early modern attitudes towards dance, as the perception of dancers changed from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil.

First comprehensive survey of a major genre of medieval English texts: its purpose, characteristics, and reception.The "bestseller list" of medieval England would have included many manuals for penitents: works that could teach the public about the process of confession, and explain the abstract concept of sin through familiar situations. Among these 'bestselling' works were the Manuel des péchés (commonly known through its English translation Handlyng Synne), The Speculum Vitae, and Chaucer's Parson's Tale. This book is the first full-length overview of this body of writing and its material and social contexts. It shows that while manuals for penitents developed under the Church's control, they also became a site of the Church's concern. Manuals such as the Compileison (which was addressed to a much broader audience than its English analogue, Ancrene Wisse) brought learning that had been controlled by the Church into the hands of layfolk and, in so doing, raised significant concerns over who should have access to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.cess to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.cess to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.cess to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.