6. Religious / Intellectual History

Church Histories / Histories of the Papacy

Note that some of these books often provide a useful narrative framework for understanding the period as a whole:

  • Barraclough, G.. The Medieval Papacy (London, 1968). MEB.
  • de Jong, M., 'Charlemagne's Church', in J. Story (ed.), Charlemagne: Empire and Society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 103-35. MSDC.*
  • Clark, G., Christianity and Roman Society, Key Themes in Ancient History (Cambridge, 2004). LV.K.
  • Deansley, M., A History of the Medieval Church, 590-1500 (London, 1989). PO.B.
  • Delogu, P., 'The Papacy, Rome and the Wider World in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries', in J. M. H. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West, Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean, Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1453, 28 (Leiden, 2000), pp. 197-220. MFWB.Q.
  • Lynch, J. H., The Medieval Church, A Brief History (London, 1992). MBO.
  • Markus, R. A., Gregory the Great and his World (Cambridge, 1997). PN.DL.G75.
  • McKitterick, R., The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789-895 (London, 1977). MSDC.K.
  • Noble, T. F. X., 'The Papacy in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries', in R. McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2, A.D. 700-900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 563-86. MB.*
  • Noble, T. F. X., The Republic of St Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825 (Philadelphia, Penn., 1984). MEB.
  • Noble, T. F. X., and J. M. H. Smith (eds), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3, c.600-c.1100 (Cambridge, 2008). PO.
  • Partner, P., The Lands of St Peter, The Papal State in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance (London, 1972). MEB.
  • Richards, J., The Pope and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages 476-752 (London, 1979). MEB.
  • Southern, R. W., Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London, 1970). PO.
  • Thomson, J. A. F., The Western Church in the Middle Ages (London, 1998). PO.B.
  • Ullmann, W., A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages (London, 1972). MEB.
  • Ullmann, W., The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (3rd ed., London, 1970). MEB.
  • Ullmann, W., The Papacy and Political Ideas in the Middle Ages (London, 1976). Collected Essays. MEB7.
  • Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983). PO.B.

Christianisation (which means much more than just 'evangelisation' or 'conversion to Christianity')

  • Allen, P., 'The Definition and Enforcement of Orthodoxy', in A. M. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, M. Whitby, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425-600 (Cambridge: University Press, 2001), pp. 811-34. LI.*
  • Brown, P. R. L., 'Christianization and Religious Conflict', in A. M. Cameron and P. Garnsey (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 13, The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 632-64. LI.*
  • Brown, P. R. L., 'The Problem of Christianization', Proceedings of the British Academy, 82 (1992), 89-106.
  • Cusack, C. M., Conversion among the Germanic Peoples (London, 1998). PO.B
  • Effros, B., 'Beyond Cemetery Walls: Early Medieval Funerary Topography and Christian Salvation', Early Medieval Europe, 6 (1997), 1-23. Online at Ingenta Select: Academic Search Premier.
  • Fletcher, R., The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity, 371-1386 AD (London, 1997). PO.A.
  • Flint, V. I. J., The Rise of Magic in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1991). KIId.
  • Fouracre, P., 'The Work of Audoenus of Rouen and Eligius of Noyon in Extending Episcopal Influence from the Town to the Country in Seventh-Century Neustria', in D. Baker (ed.), The Church in Town and Countryside, Studies in Church History 16 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 77-91. PO7.
  • Hen, Y., Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, A.D. 481-751 (Leiden, 1995). MSC.H.
  • Hillgarth, J. N. (ed.), Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of Western Europe, The Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1986). MBD.K.
  • Hines, J., 'The Conversion of the Old Saxons', in Dennis H. Green and Frank Siegmund (eds.) The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 299-328. MIG.
  • Klingshirn, W. E.,Caesarius of Arles: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser. 22 (Cambridge, 1994). PN.DK.C1. See also Caesarius of Arles, Life, Testament and Letters, trs. W. E. Klingshirn (Liverpool, 1994). PN.DK.C1.
  • Lim, R., 'Converting the Un-Christianizable: The Baptism of Stage Performers in Late Antiquity, in Kenneth Mills and A. Grafton (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing, Studies in Comparative History (Rochester, NY, 2003), pp. 84-126. LVL.K.
  • Paxton, F. S., Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY, 1990). KCYD3.
  • Payer, P. J., Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550-1150 (Toronto, 1984). KCU3.
  • Rebillard, Eric, 'Conversion and Burial in the Late Roman Empire', in Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing, Studies in Comparative History (Rochester, NY, 2003), pp. 60-83. LVL.K.
  • Reff, D. T., Plagues, Priests and Demons: Sacred Narratives and the Rise of Christianity in the Old World and the New (Cambridge, 2005). PO.A.
  • Reimitz, H., 'Conversion and Control: The Establishment of Liturgical Frontiers in Carolingian Pannonia', in W. Pohl, I. N. Wood, and H. Reimitz (eds.), The Transformation of Frontiers. from Late Antiquity to the Carolingians (Leiden, 2001), pp. 189-207. LTE.
  • Reuter, T. (ed.), The Greatest Englishman: Essays on St Boniface and the Church at Crediton (Exeter, 1980). PN.DM.B65.
  • Reynolds, P. L., Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 24 (Leiden, 1994). KCV3.
  • Stancliffe, C., 'From Town to Country: The Christianization of the Touraine 370-600', in D. Baker (ed.), The Church in Town and Countryside, Studies in Church History 16 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 43-59. PO7.
  • Tellenbach, G., The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century, trs. T. Reuter (Cambridge, 1993), chp. 1. MBO.
  • Wood, I. N., 'Christianisation and the Dissemination of Christian Teaching', in P. Fouracre (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1, c.500-c.700 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 710-34. MB.*
  • Wood, I. N., The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400-1050 (Harlow, 2001). MBO.

Items about the Religion of the People / the Cult of Saints (see also the Gender section)

  • Brown, P. R. L., 'Holy Men', in A. M. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, M. Whitby (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425-600 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 781-810. LI.*
  • Brown, P. R. L., The Cult of the Saints. Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981). PN.B.*
  • Burrus, V., The Sex Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography, Divinations: Rereading Late Antique Religion (Philadelphia, PA, 2008). PN.C.
  • de Jong, M., The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–840 (Cambridge, 2009). MSDC.K.
  • Farmer, S., Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca, 1991). MTV.K. Mostly concerned with the High Middle Ages, but has some material on the early history of the cult of St Martin of Tours.
  • Fouracre, P. J.,, and R. A. Gerberding, Late Merovingian France, History and Hagiography, 640-720, Manchester Medieval Sources Series (Manchester and New York, 1996). MSC.
  • Fouracre, P., 'The Origins of the Carolingian Attempt to Regulate the Cult of Saints', in P. A. Hayward and J. Howard-Johnston (eds.), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), pp. 143-65. PN.C7.
  • Geary, P. J., Furta Sacra, Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (2nd. ed., Princeton, 1990). MBO.
  • Goffart, W., The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, NJ, 1988), chp. 3, 'Gregory of Tours'. MBB.
  • Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Confessors, trs. R. van Dam (Liverpool, 1988). PN.C.
  • Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs, trs. R. van Dam (Liverpool, 1988). PN.C.
  • Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, trs. O. M. Dalton, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1927). MSC.
  • Heinzelmann, M., Gregory of Tours: History and Society in the Sixth Century, trs. C. Carroll (Cambridge, 2001). MSC.
  • Mitchell, K., and I. N. Wood (eds.), The World of Gregory of Tours, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples 8 (Leiden, 2002). MSC7.
  • Moreira, I., 'Provisatrix Optima: St Radegund of Poiters' Relic Petitions to the East', Journal of Medieval History, 19 (1993), 285-305. Online at Science Direct.
  • Noble, T. F. X., 'Secular Sanctity: Forging an Ethos for the Carolingian Nobility', in P. Wormald and J. L. Nelson (eds), Learned Laity in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 8-36. MSD.I.
  • Paxton, F. S., 'Liturgy and Healing in an Early Medieval Saint's Cult: The Mass In honore sancti Sigismundi for the Cure of Fevers', Traditio, 49 (1994), 23-43. Journals L6.
  • Peterson, J. M., 'Dead or Alive? The Holy Man as Healer in the East and West in Late Sixth Century', Journal of Medieval History, 9 (1983), 91-98. Available online at Ingenta Select.
  • Rollason, D. W., 'The Miracles of St Benedict: A Window on Early Medieval France', in H. Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (eds.), Studies in Medieval History presented to R. H. C. Davis (London, 1985), pp. 73-90. MB7.
  • Smith, J. M. H., 'Saints and their Cults', in T. F. X. Noble and J. M. H. Smith (eds), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3, c.600–c.1100 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 581–605. PO.
  • Smith, J. M. H., '"Emending Evil Ways and Praising God's Omnipotence": Einhard and the Uses of Roman Martyrs', in K. Mills and A. Grafton (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing, Studies in Comparative History (Rochester, NY, 2003), pp. 189-223. LVL.K.
  • Smith, J. M. H., 'Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia', in idem (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1453, 28 (Leiden, 2000), pp. 317-39. MFWB.Q.
  • Smith, J. M. H., 'Women at the Tomb: Access to Relic Shrines in the Early Middle Ages', in K. Mitchell and I. N. Wood (eds.), The World of Gregory of Tours, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples 8 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 163-80. MSC7.
  • Stancliffe, C., St Martin and his Hagiographer, History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus (Oxford, 1983). PN.DK.M3.
  • Van Dam, R., Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, NJ, 1993). PN.C.*
  • Wood, I. N., 'Constructing Cults in Early Medieval France: Local Saints and Churches in Burgundy and the Auvergne, 400-1000', in A. T. Thacker and R. Sharpe (eds.), Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West (Oxford, 2003), pp. 155-87. PN.C.

Secular Clergy, Regular Canons and Ecclesiastical Organisation

  • Claussen, M. A., The Reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the Regula Canonicorum in the Eighth Century, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser. 60 (Cambridge, 2004). MSC.K.
  • Scheilbelreiter, G., 'Church Structure and Organisation', in P. Fouracre (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1, c.500-c.700 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 675-709. MB.*
  • Wood, S., The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford, 2006). MBO.

Early Medieval Monasticism

  • Decarreaux, J., Monks and Civilization from the Barbarian Invasions to the Reign of Charlemagne (London, 1964). MBD.
  • Dunn, M., The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2000). POWA.
  • Costambeys, M., Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700-900, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser. 70 (Cambridge, 2007). MFWB.Q.
  • Ganz, D., 'The Ideology of Sharing: Apostolic Community and Ecclesiastical Property in the Early Middle Ages', in W. Davies and P. Fouracre (eds.), Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 17-30. DQBA.
  • Herlihy, D., 'Church Property on the European Continent, 701-1200', Speculum, 36 (1961), 81-105. Journals L6; available online at JSTOR. Important for assessing the scale of monastic landholding in the Carolingian period.
  • Horn, W., and E. Born, The Plan of Saint Gall, 3 vols. (Berkeley, 1979). 9POWD - closed access.
  • Knowles, D., Christian Monasticism (London, 1969). POWA.
  • Lawrence, C. H., Medieval Monasticism, Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (2nd edn, London, 1989). MBO.* There are copies on both 3hr and 24hr short loan.
  • Nelson, J. L., 'Medieval Monasticism', in P. Linehan and J. L. Nelson, eds., The Medieval World (London and New York, 2001), pp. 576-604. MB7.L.*
  • Rosenwein, B. H., 'Perennial Prayer at Agaune', in S. Farmer and B. H. Rosenwein (ed.), Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts: Religion in Medieval Society (Ithaca, NY, 2000), pp. 37-56. MBO.
  • Rousseau, P., 'Monasticism', in A. M. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, M. Whitby (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425-600 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 745-80. LI.*
  • Sullivan, R. E., 'What was Carolingian Monasticism? The Plan of St Gall and the History of Monasticism', in A. C. Murray (ed.), After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History: Essays Presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto, 1998), pp. 251-87. MBR7.

Tenth-Century Monasticism

  • Evans, J., Monastic Life at Cluny, 910-1157 (London, 1931). POWDC.
  • Hunt, N. (ed.), Cluniac Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages (London, 1971). POWDC.
  • Iogna-Prat, D., 'The Dead in the Celestial Bookkeeping of the Cluniac Monks', in L. K. Little and B. H. Rosenwein (eds.), Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings (Malden, MA, 1998), pp. 340-62. MB7.*
  • Nightingale, J. B. W., Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform: Lotharingia, c.850-1000, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford, 2001). MTG.K.
  • Rosenwein, B. H., Negotiating Space, Power, Restraint and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester, 1999). MBS.
  • Rosenwein, B. H., To be the Neighbour of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny's Property, 909-1049 (Ithaca, NY, 1989). POWDC.
  • Venarde, B. L., Women's Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215 (Ithaca, NY, 1997). POWRf.

Histories of Learning and Cultural Life

  • Alcuin, Alcuin of York, c AD 732 to 804: His Life and Letters, trs. S. Allott (York, 1974). PN.DM.A3.
  • Bullough, D. A., Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 16 (Leiden, 2003). PN.DM.A3.
  • Bullough, D. A., 'Charlemagne's "Men of God": Alcuin, Hildebald, Arn', in J. Story (ed.), Charlemagne: Empire and Society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 136-50. MSDC.*
  • Fontaine, J., 'Education and Learning', in P. Fouracre (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 1, c.500-c.700 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 735-59. MB.*

  • Ganz, D., '"Roman Books" Reconsidered: the Theology of Carolingian Display Script', in J. M. H. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West, Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, The Medieval Mediterranean, Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1453, 28 (Leiden, 2000), pp. 297-315. MFWB.Q.
  • Godman, P., Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985). XJQC.
  • Gorman, M., 'The Commentary on Genesis of Claudius of Turin and Biblical Studies under Louis the Pious', Speculum, 72 (1997), 279-329. Has important comments on the methods of Carolingian intellectuals. Journals L6; JSTOR.
  • Hiscock, N. (ed.), The White Mantle of Churches: Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium, International Medieval Research 10: Art History Subseries 2 (Turnhout, 2003). +PN.I.
  • Krautheimer, R., Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, The Pelican History of Art (Baltimore, 1965). VAN.
  • Laistner, M. L. W., Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500 to 900 (2nd ed., London, 1957). Old, but still a very useful and readable introduction. MBF.I.
  • Marenbon, J., Early Mediaeval Philosophy, 480-1150: An Introduction (2nd edn, London: Routledge, 1988). AB.
  • Marenbon, J., From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre: Logic, Theology, and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd ser. 15 (Cambridge, 1981). AB.
  • McKitterick, R. (ed.), Carolingian Culture, Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1994). MSD.I.
  • McKitterick, R., 'The Carolingian Renaissance of Culture and Learning', in J. Story (ed.), Charlemagne: Empire and Society (Manchester, 2005), pp. 151-66. MSDC.*
  • McKitterick, R. (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1990). MBR7.
  • McKitterick, R., The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989). MSD.I.
  • Noble, T. F. X., 'Lupus of Ferrières in His Carolingian Context', in A. C. Murray (ed.), After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History: Essays Presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto, 1998), pp. 232-50. MBR7.
  • Glenn, J., Politics and History in the Tenth Century: The Work and World of Richer of Reims, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser. 60 (Cambridge, 2004). MSEC.J.
  • Riché, P., Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: Sixth through Eighth Centuries, trs. J. J. Contreni (Columbia, SC, 1976). MBB.I.
  • Sullivan, R. E., 'The Carolingian Age: Reflections on its Place in the History of the Middle Ages', Speculum 64 (1989), 267-306. Journals L6; JSTO.R
  • Wormald, P., and J. L. Nelson (eds), Learned Laity in the Carolingian Era (Cambridge, 2007). MSD.I.
  • Wright, R. (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1991) - an important attempt to define the moment when classical Latin become inaccessible to all but the learned. XKB.

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