The history of the Western church in the Middle Ages is the history of the most elaborate and thoroughly integrated system of religious thought and practice the world has ever known. It is also the history of European society during eight hundred years of sometimes rapid change. This authoritative history shows how the concept of an organized human society, both religious and secular, as an expression of a divinely ordered universe, was central to medieval thought. Professor R. W. Southern's book covers the period from the eighth to the sixteenth century, highlighting the main features of each medieval age and studying the Papacy, the relations between Rome and her rival Constantinople, the bishops and archbishops and the various religious orders in detail, providing a superb study of the period.
Preface
List of Abbreviations
1. Church and Society
2. The Divisions of Time
I. The Primitive Age, c. 700-c. 1050
II. The Age of Growth, c. 1050-c. 1300
The main development
The rise and limits of clerical supremacy
The positive achievement
III. The Age of Unrest, c. 1300-c. 1550
The changing environment
Political change and reaction
3. The Divisions of Christendom
I. The Seeds of Disunity
Divergent habits
Political separation
Doctrinal differences
II. The Two Churches
III. The Search for Reunion
The military way
The political package deal
The way of understanding
Regression
4. The Papacy
I. The Primitive Age, c. 700-c. 1050
The Vicar of St. Peter
The supreme temporal lord
II. The Age of Growth, c. 1050-c. 1300
The Vicar of Christ
The growth of business
The primacy and temporal power
The lawyer-popes
III. The Inflationary Spiral, c. 1300-c. 1520
Indulgences
International politics
The struggle for benefices
5. Bishops and Archbishops
I. The Carolingian Church Order and Its Break-Up
The formation of a bishop
The break-up of the Carolingian ideal
II. Bishops in the Service of the Pope
An archbishop in northern France
An archbishop in England
A bishop in Germany
An episcopal family in northern Italy
6. The Religious Orders
I. The Benedictines
The Rule
The centuries of greatness
Change and decay
II. The New Orders
The Augustinian canons
The Cistercians
III. The Friars
The environment
Aims and origins
Growth and achievement
7. Fringe Orders and Anti-Orders
I. The General Environment
The behaviour of crowds
The influence of women in religious life
II. A Confusion of Tongues
The beguines of Cologne
The religious brethren of Deventer and its neighbourhood
Epilogue
List of Popes, 590-153Index
