In 1600, the Catholic Inquisition condemned the philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno for heresy, and he was then burned alive in the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome. Historians, scientists, and philosophical scholars have traditionally held that Bruno’s theological beliefs led to his execution, denying any link between his study of the nature of the universe and his trial. But in Burned Alive, Alberto A. Martínez draws on new evidence to claim that Bruno’s cosmological beliefs—that the stars are suns surrounded by planetary worlds like our own, and that the Earth moves because it has a soul—were indeed the primary factor in his condemnation. Linking Bruno’s trial to later confrontations between the Inquisition and Galileo in 1616 and 1633, Martínez shows how some of the same Inquisitors who judged Bruno challenged Galileo. In particular, one clergyman who authored the most critical reports used by the Inquisition to condemn Galileo in 1633 immediately thereafter wrote an unpublished manuscript in which he denounced Galileo and other followers of Copernicus for their beliefs about the universe: that many worlds exist and that the Earth moves because it has a soul. Challenging the accepted history of astronomy to reveal Bruno as a true innovator whose contributions to the science predate those of Galileo, this book shows that is was cosmology, not theology, that led Bruno to his death.

An action-packed drama full of urban gangs, witches, and a modern day Inquisition.

Acts and Monuments by John Foxe, popularly abridged as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a celebrated work of church history and martyrology, first published in English in 1563 by John Day. Published early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and only five years after the death of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I, Foxe's Acts and Monuments was an affirmation of the Protestant Reformation in England during a period of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Foxe's account of church history asserted a historical justification that was intended to establish the Church of England as a continuation of the true Christian church rather than as a modern innovation, and it contributed significantly to a nationalistic repudiation of the Roman Catholic Church. The sequence of the work, initially in five books, covered first early Christian martyrs, a brief history of the medieval church, including the Inquisitions, and a history of the Wycliffite or Lollard movement. It then dealt with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, during which the dispute with Rome had led to the separation of the English Church from papal authority and the issuance of the Book of Common Prayer. The final book treated the reign of Queen Mary and the Marian Persecutions. (courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner In New York Burning, Bancroft Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore recounts these dramatic events of 1741, when ten fires blazed across Manhattan and panicked whites suspecting it to be the work a slave uprising went on a rampage. In the end, thirteen black men were burned at the stake, seventeen were hanged and more than one hundred black men and women were thrown into a dungeon beneath City Hall. Even back in the seventeenth century, the city was a rich mosaic of cultures, communities and colors, with slaves making up a full one-fifth of the population. Exploring the political and social climate of the times, Lepore dramatically shows how, in a city rife with state intrigue and terror, the threat of black rebellion united the white political pluralities in a frenzy of racial fear and violence.

“A fascinating tale of witchcraft and skulduggery in darkest Yorkshire in the early 19th century. . . . An extraordinary story, brilliantly told.” —Books Monthly On the morning of March 20, 1809, the woman who had earned herself the title of “The Yorkshire Witch” was hanged at York’s New Drop gallows before an estimated crowd of twenty thousand people—many of them victims of her hoaxes and extortion. A consummate con artist, Mary Bateman was adept at identifying the psychological weaknesses of the desperate and poor who populated the growing industrial metropolis of Leeds. Exploiting their fears and terror of witchcraft, Mary was well placed to rob them of their worldly goods, yet she did much more than cause misery and penury. Though tried and convicted of only one murder, the contemporary belief that she was a serial killer is doubtlessly accurate. A meticulously researched retelling of Mary Bateman’s life and death, and the macabre legacy of her mortal remains, The Yorkshire Witch is also a “wealth of social history . . . about the lives of servants; housing conditions . . . the rise in religious fervour . . . the prevalence of superstitious beliefs . . . accounts of early toxicology; how crimes were prosecuted; the treatment of female convicts; and public executions” (Crime Review).

Burning Bodies interrogates the ideas that the authors of historical and theological texts in the medieval West associated with the burning alive of Christian heretics. Michael Barbezat traces these instances from the eleventh century until the advent of the internal crusades of the thirteenth century, depicting the exclusionary fires of hell and judicial execution, the purifying fire of post-mortem purgation, and the unifying fire of God's love that medieval authors used to describe processes of social inclusion and exclusion. Burning Bodies analyses how the accounts of burning heretics alive referenced, affirmed, and elaborated upon wider discourses of community and eschatology. Descriptions of burning supposed heretics alive were profoundly related to ideas of a redemptive Christian community based upon a divine, unifying love, and medieval understandings of what these burnings could have meant to contemporaries cannot be fully appreciated outside of this discourse of communal love. For them, human communities were bodies on fire. Medieval theologians and academics often described the corporate identity of the Christian world as a body joined together by the love of God. This love was like a fire, melting individuals together into one whole. Those who did not spiritually burn with God's love were destined to burn literally in the fires of Hell or Purgatory, and the fires of execution were often described as an earthly extension of these fires. Through this analysis, Barbezat demonstrates how presentations of heresy, and to some extent actual responses to perceived heretics, were shaped by long-standing images of biblical commentary and exegesis. He finds that this imagery is more than a literary curiosity; it is, in fact, a formative historical agent.

** SOON TO BE A PARAMOUNT+ ORIGINAL SERIES STARRING SAMANTHA MORTON AND RUBY STOKES** The chilling RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Chalk Man If you see the Burning Girls something bad will befall you... 'A mesmerising and atmospheric page-turner, with plenty of shocks and a surprise twist for a finale. Her best novel yet' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Hypnotic and horrifying . . . Without doubt her best yet, The Burning Girls left me sleeping with the lights on' CHRIS WHITAKER _________ 500 years ago: eight martyrs burned 30 years ago: two teenagers vanished Two months ago: a vicar died mysteriously Welcome to Chapel Croft. For Rev Jack Brooks and teenage daughter Flo it's a fresh start. New job, new home. But in a close-knit community old superstitions and a mistrust of outsiders mean treading carefully. Yet right away Jack has more frightening concerns. Why did no one say the last vicar killed himself? Why is Flo plagued by visions of burning girls? And who is sending them threatening messages? Old ghosts with scores to settle can never rest. And Jack is standing in their way . . . _________ 'Tudor operates on the border between credulity and disbelief, creating an atmosphere of menace' Sunday Times 'A gothic, spine-tingling roller-coaster of a story . . . CJ Tudor is a master of horror' C.J. COOKE, author of The Nesting 'The best book yet from C. J. Tudor' Best Praise for C. J. Tudor: 'C. J. Tudor is terrific. I can't wait to see what she does next' Harlan Coben 'Britain's female Stephen King' Daily Mail 'A mesmerizingly chilling and atmospheric page-turner' J.P. Delaney 'Her books have the ability to simultaneously make you unable to stop reading while wishing you could bury the book somewhere deep underground where it can't be found. Compelling and haunting' Sunday Express 'Some writers have it, and some don't. C. J. Tudor has it big time' Lee Child 'A dark star is born' A. J. Finn