Medieval Religious Rationalities

Medieval Religious Rationalities PDF Author: D. L. d'Avray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139491229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Inspired by the social theories of Max Weber, David d'Avray asks in what senses medieval religion was rational and, in doing so, proposes a new approach to the study of the medieval past. Applying ideas developed in his companion volume on Rationalities in History, he explores how values, instrumental calculation, legal formality and substantive rationality interact and the ways in which medieval beliefs were strengthened by their mutual connections, by experience, and by mental images. He sheds new light on key themes and figures in medieval religion ranging from conversion, miracles and the ideas of Bernard of Clairvaux to Trinitarianism, papal government and Francis of Assisi's charismatic authority. This book shows how values and instrumental calculation affect each other in practice and demonstrates the ways in which the application of social theory can be used to generate fresh empirical research as well as new interpretative insights.

Medieval Religious Rationalities

Medieval Religious Rationalities PDF Author: D. L. d'Avray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139491229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Inspired by the social theories of Max Weber, David d'Avray asks in what senses medieval religion was rational and, in doing so, proposes a new approach to the study of the medieval past. Applying ideas developed in his companion volume on Rationalities in History, he explores how values, instrumental calculation, legal formality and substantive rationality interact and the ways in which medieval beliefs were strengthened by their mutual connections, by experience, and by mental images. He sheds new light on key themes and figures in medieval religion ranging from conversion, miracles and the ideas of Bernard of Clairvaux to Trinitarianism, papal government and Francis of Assisi's charismatic authority. This book shows how values and instrumental calculation affect each other in practice and demonstrates the ways in which the application of social theory can be used to generate fresh empirical research as well as new interpretative insights.

Rationalities in History

Rationalities in History PDF Author: D. L. d'Avray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139490508
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In Rationalities in History the distinguished historian David d'Avray writes a new comparative history in the spirit of Max Weber. In a strikingly original reassessment of seminal Weberian ideas, d'Avray applies value rationality to the comparative history of religion and the philosophy of law. Integrating theories of rational choice, anthropological reflections on relativism, and the recent philosophy of rationality with Weber's conceptual framework, d'Avray seeks to disengage 'rationalisation' from its enduring association with Western 'modernity'. This mode of analysis is contextualised through the examples of Buddhism, Imperial China and sixteenth-century Catholicism - in the latter case building upon unpublished archival research. This ambitious synthesis of social theory and comparative history will engage social scientists and historians from advanced undergraduate level upwards, stimulating interdisciplinary discourse, and making a significant contribution to the methodology of history. D'Avray explores the potential of this new Weberian analysis further in his companion volume, Medieval Religious Rationalities.

Spiritual Rationality

Spiritual Rationality PDF Author: Stefan K. Stantchev
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198704097
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Offers the first book-length study of the Roman Catholic church's practice of embargoing trade outside of Christendom in the period c. 1150 to c. 1550, particularly examining the influence of the papacy on the state.

Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World

Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World PDF Author: Dallas G. Denery II
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113944381X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
During the later Middle Ages people became increasingly obsessed with vision, visual analogies and the possibility of visual error. In this book Dallas Denery addresses the question of what medieval men and women thought it meant to see themselves and others in relation to the world and to God. Exploring the writings of Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, Peter Aureol and Nicholas of Autrecourt in light of an assortment of popular religious guides for preachers, confessors and penitents, including Peter of Limoges' Treatise on the Moral Eye, he illustrates how the question preoccupied medieval men and women on both an intellectual and practical level. This book offers a unique interdisciplinary examination of the interplay between religious life, perspectivist optics and theology. Denery presents significant new insights into the medieval psyche and conception of the self, ensuring that this book will appeal to historians of medieval science and those of medieval religious life and theology.

Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought

Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought PDF Author: Giles Constable
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description


Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought

Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought PDF Author: Giles Constable
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521638746
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
This volume of three Studies concentrates on the changes in religious thought and institutions in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and includes not only monks and nuns but also less organised types of life such as hermits, recluses, crusaders and penitents. It is complementary to Professor Constable's forthcoming book The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, but is dissimilar from it in examining three themes over a long period, from late antiquity to the seventeenth century, in order to show how they changed over time. The interpretation of Mary and Martha deals primarily (but not exclusively) with the balance of action and contemplation in Christian life; the ideal of the imitation of Christ studies the growing emphasis on the human Christ, especially His body and wounds; and the orders of society looks at the conceptual divisions of society and the emergence of the modern idea of a middle class.

Inspiration and Authority in the Middle Ages

Inspiration and Authority in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Brian FitzGerald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019253582X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Inspiration and Authority in the Middle Ages rethinks the role of prophecy in the Middle Ages by examining how professional theologians responded to new assertions of divine inspiration. Drawing on fresh archival research and detailed study of unpublished manuscript sources from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, this volume argues that the task of defining prophetic authority became a crucial intellectual and cultural enterprise as university-trained theologians confronted prophetic claims from lay mystics, radical Franciscans, and other unprecedented visionaries. In the process, these theologians redescribed their own activities as prophetic by locating inspiration not in special predictions or ecstatic visions but in natural forms of understanding and in the daily work of ecclesiastical teaching and ministry. Instead of containing the spread of prophetic privilege, however, scholastic assessments of prophecy from Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas to Peter John Olivi and Nicholas Trevet opened space for claims of divine insight to proliferate beyond the control of theologians. By the turn of the fourteenth century, secular Italian humanists could lay claim to prophetic authority on the basis of their intellectual powers and literary practices. From Hugh of St Victor to Albertino Mussato, reflections on and debates over prophecy reveal medieval clerics, scholars, and reformers reshaping the contours of religious authority, the boundaries of sanctity and sacred texts, and the relationship of tradition to the new voices of the Late Middle Ages.

The Language of Heresy in Late Medieval English Literature

The Language of Heresy in Late Medieval English Literature PDF Author: Erin K. Wagner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501512099
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Vernacular writers of late medieval England were engaged in global conversations about orthodoxy and heresy. Entering these conversations with a developing vernacular required lexical innovation. The Language of Heresy in Late Medieval English Literature examines the way in which these writers complemented seemingly straightforward terms, like heretic, with a range of synonyms that complicated the definitions of both those words and orthodoxy itself. This text proposes four specific terms that become collated with heretic in the parlance of medieval English writers of the 14th and 15th centuries: jangler, Jew, Saracen, and witch. These four labels are especially important insofar as they represent the way in which medieval Christianity appropriated and subverted marginalized or vulnerable identities to promote a false image of unassailable authority.

The Truth Within

The Truth Within PDF Author: Gavin Flood
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199684561
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Explores the metaphor of inwardness and the idea of truth within, along with the methods developed in three religions to attain it, such as prayer and meditation.

On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages

On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages PDF Author: Gergely Tibor Bakos
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630876550
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages is an investigation of Nicholas of Cusa that seeks a deeper understanding of this important medieval intellectual and his importance for us today. One of Gergely Bakos's primary aims in this study is to understand Nicholas of Cusa's important and underexamined dimensions of his approach to dialogue with Islam. The framework and the methodology that informs this investigation was inspired by the late Professor Jos Decorte (1954-2001), a Flemish philosopher and mediaevalist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Bakos carefully exposits his method of approaching medieval thought (Part One) and then applies and tests this method in practice (Part Two). The most extensive part of this study offers a sketch of the historical background of Nicholas's dialogue with Islam and investigates what possibilities this approach offers. All of this is placed in dialogue with two other mediaeval approaches to Islam (Thomas Aquinas and Ramon Lull). The final chapters discuss Nicholas of Cusa's project from a perspective offered by his mystical theology. The book culminates in an exploration of the possibilities of Nicholas of Cusa's approach by testing the framework of the study. Finally, the author evaluates the application of his own approach (Part Three). The study ultimately has two purposes: to contribute to a better understanding of Nicholas of Cusa's thought, on the one hand, and, on the other, to test a particular methodology and interpretative framework for the understanding of mediaeval culture.