At the Edge of Reformation

Author(s):  
Peter Linehan

This book springs from its author’s continuing interest in the history of Spain and Portugal—on this occasion in the first half of the fourteenth century between the recovery of each kingdom from widespread anarchy and civil war and the onset of the Black Death. Focussing on ecclesiastical aspects of the period in that region (Galicia in particular) and secular attitudes to the privatization of the Church, it raises inter alios the question why developments there did not lead to a permanent sundering of the relationship with Rome (or Avignon) two centuries ahead of that outcome elsewhere in the West. In addressing such issues, as well as of neglected material in Spanish and Portuguese archives, use is made of the also unpublished so-called ‘secret’ registers of the popes of the period. The issues it raises concern not only Spanish and Portuguese society in general but also the developing relationship further afield of the components of the eternal quadrilateral (pope, king, episcopate, and secular nobility) in late medieval Europe, as well as of the activity in that period of those caterpillars of the commonwealth, the secular-minded sapientes. In this context, attention is given to the hitherto neglected attempt of Afonso IV of Portugal to appropriate the privileges of the primatial church of his kingdom and to advance the glorification of his Castilian son-in-law, Alfonso XI, as God’s vicegerent in his.

1968 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-448
Author(s):  
R. C. Walls

Six centuries ago, in 1368, a man who had been dead only nine years was canonised by the orthodox church and raised to the dignity of Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and of Cyril as a defender of orthodoxy. The sexcentenary of his death, 1959, saw the publication of three volumes—the first being one of the ‘Mâitres Spirituels’ series, the second an introduction to the study of St. Gregory, and the third and most important a critical edition of St. Gregory's major work: Treatise in defence of the Holy Solitaries. All three were the work of Jean Meyendorf who can rightly claim to have been the first scholar to have offered a full-dress sympathetic study to the west of a neglected and much misunderstood theologian. Unfortunately Meyendorf's work is spoilt by his inability to understand the reformed tradition. Nevertheless he has countered or at least challenged a settled assumption of western theology that the great christological debates saw the end of any lively thinking and dogmatic development in the Eastern Church. Harnack in his History of Dogma Vol. IV was only repeating what was already a long received opinion when he said that from the codification of dogma by John of Damascus those dogmas ‘had become a sacred inheritance from the classic antiquity of the Church but they had as it were fallen to the ground. The worship of images, mysticism and scholasticism ruled the Church’ (p. 352).But even Harnack gives at least a passing nod to St. Gregory when he admits that ‘no doubt another rather important dispute agitated the Church in the fourteenth century–the Hesychastic controversy–but’, he adds, ‘dogma, and to some extent the Church, remained ultimately unaffected’ (p.353).


1983 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amechi Okolo

This paper traces the history of the relationship between Africa and the West since their first contact brought about by the outward thrust of the West, under the impetus of rising capitalism, in search of cheap labour and cheap raw material for its industries and expanding markets for its industrial products, both of which could be better ensured through domination and exploitation. The paper identifies five successive stages that African political economy has passed through under the impact of this relationship, each phase qualitatively different from the other but all having the common characteristic of domination-dependence syndrome, and each phase having been dictated by the dynamics of capitalism in different eras and by the dominant forces in the changing international system. Its finding is that the way to the latest stage, the dependency phase, was paved by the progressive proletarianization of the African peoples and the maintenance of an international peonage system. It ends by indicating the direction in which Africa can make a beginning to break out of dependency and achieve liberation.


1950 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-62
Author(s):  
Stephen A. van Dijk

Everybody who knows the ABC of the history of the Roman liturgy has undoubtedly heard of the story about the fourteenth-century dean of Tongres, Ralph van der Beke (de Rivo). His education in matters ecclesiastical had been splendid; his zeal for the reform of the Church was fervent and sincere; he was especially devoted to a revival of the liturgy of his time and the problems which he raised are accepted as being of the greatest importance. But this is not the whole story. Ralph's life does not lack a certain note comigue which is not often heard of. Ralph had his weaknesses: one of them was a whole-hearted aversion to the Friars Minor, who a century before had occasioned a liturgical reform in the Church, the consequences of which he saw every day and simply did not like. Until someone has checked Ralph's personal connections with the friars and the influence which he underwent from those Italians, who, under a show of zeal for the Eternal City, hid their jealousy and selfinterest and disputed everything concerning the papal court at Avignon, it is difficult to decide whether he could not stand the friars because of their Roman liturgy or the Roman liturgy because of the friars. All the same, whatever they did, for Ralph it was always wrong, and the most flattering thing which he could find in his heart was that those friars singularem usum cum regula servant singulari, as though it were a crime to follow the customs of the pope and nothing but praiseworthy to keep to those of the bishop of Liège or Lyons, or even the abbot of Cluny or Montecassino.


2021 ◽  
pp. 257-271
Author(s):  
Денис Владимирович Макаров

Основная цель исследования состоит в выявлении основной проблематики романа «Александр Невский» и в исследовании особенностей художественного образа святого благоверного князя Александра Невского в художественном произведении одного из выдающихся представителей советской военной прозы Бориса Львовича Васильева. Начиная со второй половины 1990-х годов писатель воплощает в литературе образы выдающихся древнерусских князей и создаёт в своих исторических романах целую галерею художественных портретов: Владимира Святого, Ярослава Мудрого, Владимира Мономаха и многих других. В работе применяется сравнительно-исторический метод и метод филологического анализа. Для достижения указанной цели анализируется основная проблематика романа Бориса Васильева. В качестве наиболее актуальных для Руси XIII в. вопросов, поднимаемых автором, выделяются проблемы духовного наследия Византии, феодальной раздробленности, двоеверия, взаимоотношения власти (государства) и Церкви, исторического выбора между Востоком и Западом. Автором статьи предпринимает сопоставление образа святого благоверного князя Александра Невского прежде всего со знаменитым памятником древнерусской литературы XIII в. «Повесть о житии Александра Невского». Также в статье указываются предшественники Бориса Васильева в создании образа благоверного князя Александра Невского в русской литературе XIX и XX вв., среди которых поэты Аполлон Николаевич Майков, Лев Александрович Мей, Константин Михайлович Симонов и писатели Алексей Кузьмич Югов, Василий Григорьевич Ян, Анатолий Александрович Субботин, Сергей Павлович Мосияш. Наиболее важные результаты исследования состоят в выявлении основных особенностей художественного образа святого благоверного князя Александра Невского в романе Бориса Васильева. The main purpose of the research is to identify the main problems of the novel «Alexander Nevsky» and to study the features of the artistic image of the saint Prince Alexander Nevsky in the artistic work of one of the outstanding representatives of Soviet military prose - Boris Lvovich Vasiliev, who turned in the second half of the 1990s-2010s to the embodiment in artistic images of outstanding Ancient Russian princes and created in his historical novels from 1996 to 2010 a whole gallery of artistic images: Vladimir the Saint, Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh and many others. To achieve this goal, the main problems of the novel by Boris Vasiliev are analyzed. The research highlights the problems of the spiritual heritage of Byzantium, feudal fragmentation, dual faith, the relationship between the government (state) and the Church, the historical choice between East and West are highlighted as the most relevant issues for Russia of the XIII century raised by the author, the problems of the spiritual heritage of Byzantium, feudal fragmentation, dual faith, the relationship between the government (state) and the Church, the historical choice between the East and the West. The comparison of the image of the saint Prince Alexander Nevsky is undertaken, first of all, with the famous monument of ancient Russian literature of the XIII century «The Story of the Life of Alexander Nevsky». The work also identifies the literary predecessors of Boris Vasiliev in creating the image of the blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky in Russian literature of the XIX and XX centuries, among them the poets Apollo Nikolaevich Maykov, Lev Alexandrovich May, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov and the writers Alexey Kuzmich Yugov, Vasily Grigoryevich Yan, Anatoly Alexandrovich Subbotin, Sergey Pavlovich Mosiyash. The comparative-historical method and the method of philological analysis are used in the work. The most important results of the study are to identify the main features of the artistic image of the saint Prince Alexander Nevsky in the novel by Boris Vasiliev.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 99-111
Author(s):  
P. Bracy Bersnak ◽  

While Orestes Brownson’s works are the object of renewed interest, his writings on the relationship between Church and polity have received little notice. Some attention has been given to Brownson’s analysis of these issues in America, but little has been given to his views on Church and polity in Europe and the West more broadly. This article considers Brownson’s analysis of the history of Church-state relations in Europe to examine how it shaped his view of Church-state relations in the U.S. It then put Brownson in dialogue with subsequent Catholic debates in America about those relations down to the present.


Author(s):  
Anthony Roberts

With Turkic and Tajik peoples to the north, Tajiks and Pashtuns in the west, ethnic Hazaras in the central highlands and the Pashtuns to the south and east, Afghanistan’s diversity stems from its history as a regional crossroads. Christianity began in Afghanistan in the fourth century and was later revived by missionaries in the frontier areas, but there was little concerted effort to spread the faith until after 1945, when the Pashtun monarchy sought to modernise Afghanistan. However, the Soviet invasion prompted fighters to repel the forces under the banner of Islam. Amidst a civil war, Christian NGO’s continued until expelled by the Taliban in 2001. The new government allowed Christian NGO’s to expand into new areas of the country. For the sake of believers’ security the most visible fellowships have been limited to foreigners. Most find it difficult to sustain everyday life in the country while openly professing Christianity due to ostracism from society. While Islam has been linked with Afghan identity, worldview has begun to change. Unfortunately, there has been an exodus of Afghan believers, usually after social and legal ostracism. Nevertheless, due to sacrifices by Afghan believers, the church is growing in numbers despite all the challenges.


Church Life ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Elliot Vernon

This chapter examines the relationship between pastor and congregation in the London parishes during the Interregnum. It addresses how godly ministers, called on by Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil War to reform parochial discipline and prevent the ‘promiscuous multitude’ from polluting the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in England’s parish churches, negotiated issues of authority, changes to worship and liturgy, and the already contentious issues of patronage and finance. These factors forced ministers to look to the lay leaders of the parish, whether as elders or vestrymen, making them subject to factional struggles within the church life of the parish community. This chapter assesses the establishment and operation of Presbyterianism in London’s parishes during the 1640s and 1650s, as well as the practical difficulties, economic and administrative, that godly pastors experienced at the parochial level as a result of the dismantling of the Church of England.


2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-287
Author(s):  
Philippe Buc

To compare and contrast medieval Japan and medieval Western Europe allows one to discover three things. First, analogous to Catholic holy war, in Japan becomes visible a potential for war (albeit seldom actualised) for the sake, quite surprisingly, of Buddhism. Second, the different role played by emotions during war: in Europe, when vicious (and motivated by emotions such as greed, ambition or lust), they endanger the victors; thus the concern for right emotions foster, to a point, proper behavior during war; in Japan, however, the focus is on the emotions of the defeated, which may hamper a good reincarnation and produce vengeful spirits harmful to the victors and to the community at large. Finally, while Japanese warriors could and often did switch sides, the archipelago did not know for centuries anything approaching the European concept of treason, ideally punished with the highest cruelty, hated and feared to the point of generating collective paranoia and conspiracy theories. Western treason was (and is still) a secularised offspring of the Christian belief in the internal enemy of the Church, the false brethren. Arguably, the texture of the religions present in the two ensembles gave their specific form to these three aspects of warfare.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 458
Author(s):  
David Aers

Charity turns out to be the virtue which is both the root and the fruit of salvation in Langland’s Piers Plowman, a late fourteenth-century poem, the greatest theological poem in English. It takes time, suffering and error upon error for Wille, the central protagonist in Piers Plowman, to grasp Charity. Wille is both a figure of the poet and a power of the soul, voluntas, the subject of charity. Langland’s poem offers a profound and beautiful exploration of Charity and the impediments to Charity, one in which individual and collective life is inextricably bound together. This exploration is characteristic of late medieval Christianity. As such it is also an illuminating work in helping one identify and understand what happened to this virtue in the Reformation. Only through diachronic studies which engage seriously with medieval writing and culture can we hope to develop an adequate grasp of the outcomes of the Reformation in theology, ethics and politics, and, I should add, the remakings of what we understand by “person” in these outcomes. Although this essay concentrates on one long and extremely complex medieval work, it actually belongs to a diachronic inquiry. This will only be explicit in some observations on Calvin when I consider Langland’s treatment of Christ’s crucifixion and in some concluding suggestions about the history of this virtue.


1978 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Charles R. Bowlus

The relationship between military and social organization has long been a topic of major concern and debate among scholars specializing in the history of the European middle ages. It is a topic of importance, for, as we who live in the modern world are aware, the ways in which any government organizes its people for warfare have many implications that go well beyond the strategy of a particular campaign or the tactics employed at a decisive battle. The rudimentary nature of the economies and governments in medieval Europe probably made the relationship between military and social organization more direct and, hence, more obvious than it is today. Peasants may have been illiterate, but they were cognizant of their obligation to serve in local levies and to provide food, fodder, and transport facilities for armies on campaign. Magnates who kept a retinue with them at all times and who garrisoned private fortresses were dependent on surpluses produced by the peasantry for the maintenance of these forces.


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