ABSTRACT

"Conceptually well organized, stylistically clear, intellectually thoughtful, and pedagogically useful."

- Thomas Head, Speculum

"For its humane and learned approach to its enormous canvas, as well as for the cogency with which it penetrates at speed to the essentials of a vanished historical epoch, this History of the Church in the Middle Ages deserves a very wide audience indeed."

- Barrie Dobson, English Historical Review

"To have written a scholarly and very readable history of the Western Church over a millennium is a remarkable tour de force, for which Donald Logan is to be warmly congratulated."

- C.H Lawrence, The Tablet

"A feat of historical synthesis, most confident in its telling of the coming of Christianity. Books like Logan's are needed more than ever before."

- Miri Rubin, TLS

In this fascinating survey, F. Donald Logan introduces the reader to the Christian church, from the conversion of the Celtic and Germanic peoples to the discovery of the New World. He reveals how the church unified the people of Western Europe as they worshipped with the same ceremonies and used Latin as the language of civilized communication. From remote, rural parish to magnificent urban cathedral, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages explores the role of the church as a central element in determining a thousand years of history.

This new edition brings the book right up to date with recent scholarship, and includes an expanded introduction exploring the interaction of other faiths - particularly Judaism and Islam - with the Christian church.

chapter |3 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|9 pages

The Pre-Medieval Church

chapter 2|16 pages

The Beginning of the Middle Ages

chapter 3|16 pages

Justinian and Mohammed

chapter 4|22 pages

The Scene is Set

St Gregory the Great to St Boniface

chapter 5|17 pages

Church, Carolingians and Vikings

chapter 6|14 pages

The Church in Disarray, c.850–c.1050

chapter 7|24 pages

Reform, the East, Crusade

chapter 8|20 pages

The Twelfth Century

chapter 9|30 pages

Three Twelfth-Century Profiles

chapter 10|17 pages

The Age of Innocent III

chapter 12|27 pages

Two Legacies

Universities and cathedrals

chapter 13|19 pages

Developments and Fulfilments

The later thirteenth century

chapter 14|20 pages

Death and Purgatory

chapter 15|17 pages

Exile in Avignon And aftermath

chapter 16|15 pages

The Great Schism

chapter 17|18 pages

The Fifteenth Century

chapter |3 pages

Epilogue

1492: the anatomy of a year