bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mirabilis Deus in Sanctis Suis*:Social History and Medieval Miracles
Authors: Goodich Michael 
Published: March 2016

Perhaps our most learned and knowledgeable informant concerning both the heretics and their persecutors is the great inquisitor, hagiographer and Dominican historian Bernard Gui (1261–1331), who has been immortalized as the personification of evil by Umberto Eco inThe Name of the Rose. In his manual for inquisitors, Gui issued the following caveat concerning the conduct of inquiries into heresy:It is worthwhile noting that if too many questions and answers are raised, the truth is distorted and destroyed as a result of the diversity of persons and events. Rather, it is suitable not to write down all the questions and answers, but only those which touch directly on the substance and character of the event and which more closely appear to express the truth. If in one deposition too many questions and answers are found, another deposition will appear thereby diminished since too little is recorded. When so many questions and answers are written down in a trial, agreement can scarcely be found in the depositions of the witnesses, which should be both considered and avoided.
Plenty, Portents and Plague: Ecclesiastical Readings of the Natural World in Early Medieval Europe
Authors: Foot Sarah 
Published: March 2016

Noli paterFather do not allow thunder and lightning,Lest we be shattered by its fear and its fire.We fear you, the terrible one, believing there is none like you.All songs praise you throughout the host of angels.Let the summits of heaven, too, praise you with roaming lightning,O most loving Jesus, O righteous King of Kings.(Thomas Owen Clancy and Gilbert Márkus,Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery, 85)Early medieval attitudes to the natural world were distinctly ambivalent. At one level the natural world represented the marvel of God’s creative power; filled with beauty, it supplied everything necessary for human existence, meriting praise, as in the hymn sung by the herdsman from Whitby, Cædmon:
Nature, Music and the Reformation in England
Authors: Willis Jonathan 
Published: March 2016

The story of music in the Elizabethan Church is, in many ways, an embodiment of the relationship between two larger, competing and often contradictory discourses: those of Renaissance and Reformation. As Alexandra Walsham noted in the introduction toProvidence in Early Modern England, published in 1999,there is a growing conviction that too much ink has been spilt arguing about the pace, geography and social distribution of conversion and change and too little charting the ways in which the populace adjusted to the doctrinal and ecclesiastical revolution as a permanent fact.’
Theologies of Reconciliation in Thirteenth-Century England
Authors: Campbell William H. 
Published: March 2016

One of [the Pharisees], a lawyer, asked [Jesus] a question, to test Him. ‘Teacher, what is the great commandment in the Law?’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’Reconciliation of the relationships broken by sin, or the fall, is one of the central themes of Christianity, as this collection, of studies duly highlights. The themes of reconciliation to God and reconciliation to neighbour run throughout both the New Testament, with special emphasis in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, and the Hebrew Scriptures, for in this passage from the Gospel of Matthew Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. This text would have been well-known to Christian authors on the subject of reconciliation in Western Europe in the thirteenth century; and the passage, or at least its message, should have been familiar to most clergy and many of their people. As an item of catechesis, one of its virtues is that it is short, and thus easy to teach and to remember.
Judging the Nation: Early Nineteenth-Century British Evangelicals and Divine Retribution
Authors: Wolffe John 
Published: March 2016

Long had the ‘still small voice’ been spoke in vain,But God now thunders in an awful strain!Commercial woes brought down our nation’s pride,Our harvest fail’d, and yet we God defy’d:But now the ‘voice’ cries loud to all the Land,The ‘Rod’ is felt, Oh! may we see theHand.’Tis God who speaks – ’Tis He who ’points the blow,’Tis God who’s laid the pride of Britain low!In these lines, written in November 1817, a lady member of a Newcastle-upon-Tyne Nonconformist congregation unambiguously attributed the death of Princess Charlotte to specific divine intervention. This conviction reflected that of her minister, James Pringle, in a recent sermon preached on an Old Testament text widely expounded at that time, the chastening rod (or voice) of God in Micah 6: 9. Such a perception of adverse national events as divine retribution for sin, comparable to prophetic interpretations of the history of Old Testament Israel, was a noticeable strand in early nineteenth-century British evangelical discourse.
An Exegesis of Conformity: Textual Subversion of Subversive Texts
Authors: Steenberg M. C. 
Published: March 2016

‘We have learned from the Scriptures …’To speak with authority in the early Church was to speak from the Scriptures. While early Christianity may not have been a ‘religion of the book’ in the same way it is today, it was unquestionably a religion of text, and the refrain ‘we have learned from the holy Scriptures’ is a chorus in the early Christian witness. Here stood the authority of divine fulfilment. To confess merely Christ might be to proclaim a man, perhaps a prophet, perhaps a deity; but to confess ‘the scriptural Christ’ was to proclaim the Messiah foretold in divine writ, the revealed Saviour, and to find in that revelation the character and substance of the confession newly made. Nonetheless, while the text of the Old Testament might be of common heritage (though even this faced the challenge of a Marcion, who wished to do away with it), the emerging textual tradition of the Christian era provided a challenge: which text? what scripture? If the Christ of the Church is the ‘Christ of the scriptures’, determining the content of those scriptures – or those texts accorded scriptural authority in their receipt and influence -becomes critical. More than this, subverting the potential influence of texts deemed unsuitable stands as an essential task. To approach the era authentically, scholarly reading of the rise of a New Testament canon in the early Church must be combined with an understanding of the means and methodologies of its necessary correlate, textual exclusion. I shall argue here that this was accomplished through an exegetical method of subversion more intricate and nuanced than is often perceived.
The Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Movement: Revival in the West Midlands, 1875–90?
Authors: Killingray David 
Published: March 2016

In January 1875 John Blackham, a West Bromwich draper, a deacon and Sunday school teacher from the Ebenezer Congregational Church, went to Birmingham intent on hearing the American evangelist Dwight D. Moody. So large was the crowd that Blackham was turned away from the meeting. He then went to look for an alternative Christian gathering and, in his own words,
I came across a room where about 30 fine young fellows were assembled listening to their teacher, a magnificent man, with a marvellous store of information. His address was so long and so good that my head and back ached with the prolonged attention. … I wondered how it was that Moody could get 4,000, while this splendid Bible class leader could only draw about thirty, and as I thought on this the first light broke in, and I saw clearly why we had failed. I learnt also how not to do it. I realised that if the men were to be won, we must give them a service neither too long nor too learned, we must avoid dullness, gloom, and constraint.
‘The surest road to heaven’: ascetic spiritualities in English post-conquest religious life
Authors: Baker Derek 
Published: March 2016

That the changes which occurred in the conduct of the regular and ascetic life in the eleventh century were deep seated has long been accepted, and their dependence on a fundamental reappraisal of the principles and practice of that life is clearly demonstrated by contemporaries. This ‘crisis’, as it has become normal to term it, was characterised by a rejection of the world and worldly values. In a general social context it can be seen in ‘gregorian’ ideas and attitudes on the relations between church and state, on the status and attributes of the clergy, and on the position and authority of the popes as individuals and the papacy as an institution. In the context of the regular life it is evident in a rejection of the formal round and ritual over-elaboration of monastic observance, and in an abhorrence of die complex inter-relationship and inter-dependence of monastic communities and the secular society in which diey were set. When the papal legate Hugh, archbishop of Lyons, wrote to Robert of Molesme accepting and authorising the abbot’s proposed initiative he indicated where the issues and problems layyou and your sons, brethren of the community of Molesme, appeared before us at Lyons and pledged yourselves to follow from now on more strictly and more perfectly the rule of the most holy Benedict, which so far in that monastery you have observed poorly and neglectfully. Since it has been proven that because of many hindering circumstances you could not accomplish your aim in the aforementioned place, we ... consider that it would be expedient for you to retire to another place which the divine munificence will point out to you and there serve the Lord undisturbedly in a more wholesome manner.
The ‘Frankish’ penitentials
Authors: Pierce Rosamond 
Published: March 2016

The penitentials in use in the frankish lands in the eighth and ninth centuries were designed as handbooks to aid the priest in the administration of private or secret penance, being at their most simple, tabulations of various misdemeanours associated with particular vices stipulating the penances to be performed.In the early centuries of the Christian church however, penance seems to have been performed in public, involving both confession and an act of contrition before the assembled congregation. It was, moreover, then undergone only in cases of severe crimes, usually one of three capital sins of homicide, perjury and adultery. The ritual of penance is described fully by Basil the Great, from whom we also learn that the physical act of the laying on of hands by the bishop was the outward sign of reconciliation. This severe form of penance was gradually mitigated and its rarity lessened as it became associated with the increasingly more common practice of death-bed confession and penance, as well as with the lenten period of fasting and contrition, both of which practices are particularly evident in the church in Gaul in the fifth and sixth centuries. Both the bishop and, in the case of the absence of the bishop, the priest, were now empowered to reconcile the penitent.
The Scottish bishops and archbishop Arsenius
Authors: Sefton Henry R. 
Published: March 2016

Some time before July 1716 bishop Archibald Campbell made the acquaintance of Arsenius, archbishop of Thebais, who was in England on a begging mission on behalf of Samuel, patriarch of Alexandria. The circumstances of this mission are described in a fragmentary manuscript preserved in the Jolly Kist at the Edinburgh episcopal theological college. According to this account Samuel was elected patriarch by the clergy of Grand Cairo, Alexandria and Damiata in 1710. The new patriarch resolved to travel to Constantinople, Moldavia and Wallachia to procure some charitable assistance for the support of his church and was about to embark at Alexandria when he was informed by letters from Constantinople that one Cosmo, formerly archbishop of Mount Sinai had by bribery been invested in the patriarchal throne by the grand visier and would shortly be arriving with commands to the Greek nation to acknowledge him.This news obliged the patriarch to return to Grand Cairo to consult with his clergy. They strenuously opposed all thoughts of submitting to the intruder and told Samuel that he ought to stand his ground and make the bashaw a sufficient offer to secure his possession against the pretences of his adversary. Cosmo arrived soon afterwards but Samuel had by this time secured the support of the bashaw and the intruder’s designs were defeated. All this was accomplished only at very great expense which had involved the patriarch in borrowing thirty thousand dollars upon high interest from what are described as infidels and foreigners. He was also obliged to sell much of the church plate and to pawn other utensils for the loan and credit of this money. It was therefore decided to send a deputation to several parts of Christendom ‘in order to procure the charity and beg the benevolence of princes and other persons disposed to assist the afflicted’. The persons appointed for this errand were Arsenius, metropolitan of Thebais and Gennadius, archimandrite of Alexandria who set sail for England with the recommendations of their patriarch and the English consuls at Grand Cairo and Tripoli. Along with their attendants they arrived in London in 1712.
‘A magazine of religious patterns’: an Erasmian topic transposed in English protestantism
Authors: Collinson Patrick 
Published: March 2016

In his Paraclesis or Adhortatio ad christianae philosophiae studium Erasmus of Rotterdam proposed a famous anti-scholastic definition of the theologian:To me he is truly a theologian who teaches not by skill with intricate syllogisms but by a disposition of mind, by the very expression and eyes . . .In this kind of philosophy, located as it is more truly in the disposition of the mind than in syllogisms, life means more than debate, inspiration is preferable to erudition, transformation is a more important matter than intellectual comprehension. Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and—I shall boldly add—all can be theologians.In the context of this preface to the new testament the model was the supremely Christian life, ‘the speaking, healing, dying, rising Christ himself’. Elsewhere, Erasmus sketched a portrait of exemplary Christian character as he had witnessed it at first hand, among his contemporaries. In response to a correspondent whom he judged to be in search of ‘some eminent pattern of religion’ he described the obscure Jehan Vitrier, ‘a man unknown to the world but famous and renowned in the kingdom of Christ’, as a foil, in the manner of Plutarch, for the more celebrated John Colet. Of Vitrier Erasmus said that ‘in truth his whole life was nothing else than one continual sermon’; of Colet that ‘nothing could divert him from the pursuit of a gospel life.’
An abortive renaissance: catholic modernists in Sussex
Authors: Vidler A. R. 
Published: March 2016

Storrington in Sussex, at the beginning of this century, was described as ‘a quiet, peaceful village.’ Although in the intervening period its population has more than doubled, it is still known as a village and has retained much of that agreeable character. In 1909 it suddenly became the centre of an ecclesiasticalcause célèbrethat attracted international attention. Anyone who was in Storrington on 21 July in that year could have witnessed an extraordinary funeral.It was the burial of a Roman catholic priest. The mourners, who numbered about forty, assembled in the garden of the house in the middle of the village where the priest had died and walked from there in silence to a grave that had been prepared in the anglican or parish churchyard. There was no requiem or formal funeral service, but prayers were said and an address was given by an unrobed priest who was in fact a Frenchman, though that might not have been evident since he was fluent in English. He said that he spoke in the name of many French, Italian and German friends, for father George Tyrrell, whose funeral it was, had become well-known in those countries and in others too. He was one of the most conspicuous representatives of what is known to historians as the modernist movement in the Roman catholic church and of what may be described as an abortive renaissance.
Luther and the Ascetic Life
Authors: Yule George 
Published: March 2016

Luther’s attack on Medieval ascetic practices in general and on monasticism in particular was not because of asceticism as such, nor even because of the abuses that had come into monastic life, but because much of the theology that lay behind them undercut the evangelical understanding of salvation.This is the chief abomination of monasticism: we had to deny the grace of God and put our trust and hope in our holy monkery and not in the pure mercy and grace of Christ, as we had promised and begun to do in Christian baptism. For relying on works in order thereby to be justified and sanctified is in reality denying God’s grace, as St Paul clearly says (Gal. 5: 4:) ‘Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the works of the law are fallen from grace’.
Freedom through Discipline: the Concept of Little Church
Authors: Binfield Clyde 
Published: March 2016

Methodism … left a stigma on the mind of the eighteenth-century poor whilst helping at the same time to smother the growth of a working-class consciousness. Its doctrines perverted all that was healthy in men’s emotions, its creed was cruel and grim, its view of life bleak and joyless. Its place in society closely resembled that of a malignant tumour.Thus a Sheffield undergraduate essayist, year of 1983. The essayist was Methodist bred. For him liberation lay in bondage to E. P. Thompson, year of 1963. His student vigour is as much to be applauded as his interpretation is to be deplored. For him as for so many much older historians the bold stroke or the broad view has become in fact a sweeping into tunnel vision and the emancipation has become in fact a confirmation of old folk wisdom: Methodism is puritanism is repressive is reprehensible. We come very close to the heart of the present volume’s matter: asceticism, or the attainment of spiritual perfection by means of self-discipline. Or at least we come very close to the heart of the matter as it is vulgarly seen, for although asceticism is not a word which is too frequently applied to English protestant Dissent, its associations with discipline, abstinence and repression are far too frequently so applied.
An Irish Benedictine Adventure: Dom Francis Sweetman (1872-1953) and Mount St Benedict, Gorey
Authors: Bellenger Dominic Aidan 
Published: March 2016

On 11 January 1913 the following article, signed by ‘Me Fein’, appeared in an Irish periodical of pronounced nationalist views under the heading ‘Wexford Again. More Language Compulsion’:
Compulsion in educational matters seems to revolt some good souls in Wexford, and the following flash will possibly electrify Mr Fanning of the County Council of that model county. (By the way, it seems to be rapidly becoming the ‘model county’ for Irish Ireland wobbling and drunkenness prosecutions.) A school has been established at Gorey for some years by the Benedictine Fathers, for the better class young Irishmen, and it will be of interest to note some features of that educational establishment.
Timeo Barones Et Donas Ferentes
Authors: Mason Emma 
Published: March 2016

This sentiment might well have been voiced by any abbot contemplating the ambivalent relationship between his house and its patrons. They expected material, as well as spiritual returns on their investment, and these might well conflict with the best interests of the monastery. Ambivalence, though, was equally reflected in the attitude of religious houses towards their benefactors, as this brief survey of baronial patronage in England, between the late eleventh and the mid thirteenth centuries, indicates.No real doubt seems to have been held by baronial patrons that benefactions were necessary to their wellbeing in the afterlife, but they were largely guided by the maxim that ‘it is the thought which counts’, judging from the limited extent of their grants, whether on their own behalf or for the souls of deceased kinsfolk. Could things have been otherwise? They were imbued from infancy with the concept that the integrity of the fief must prevail over all other considerations. Inevitably such conditioning was reflected in their response towards things spiritual as well as towards temporal claims on their loyalties.
Ideals in Urban Mission: Episcopalians in Twentieth Century Glasgow
Authors: White Gavin 
Published: March 2016

At the beginning of this century Glasgow was romantic. It was a successful city, and it was growing rapidly. The 1901 census had shown that Scottish cities were growing faster than English, and Glasgow had increased by fifteen per cent in ten years.Much of this increase came from England, and from urban England at that. The bishop of Glasgow and Galloway said of his flock in 1901, ‘I can never find a west of Scotland man who is a hereditary episcopalian. The church seems to have been wiped away just as a man wipes a dish, and turns it upside down’. Instead they had migrants who ‘have come bringing no money with them, requiring us to provide religious ministrations for them. We have done our best.’ It was estimated that there were fifty thousand episcopalians and Anglicans in Glasgow, of whom only fourteen thousand were known to the clergy. In 1894 a census of four areas rated episcopalians at six per cent of die population, and another census in Govan at ten per cent. In a famous speech to the representative church council of 1901, Anthony Mitchell admitted ‘a feeling of dejection’ at the size of the problem, though he added that nowhere else would missionary work find ‘a readier return’. The bishop substantiated this, saying that Glasgow people were ‘not hostile to religion . . . many of them are thirsting after it’, as shown by the crowds attracted by street preachers. The rural dioceses in Scotland were asked to support the work as their migrants were in Glasgow, though in fact these were probably not a significant number.
Idealism and Association in Early Nineteenth Century Dissent
Authors: Lovegrove Deryck 
Published: March 2016

In April 1799 Francis Wollaston, rector of Chislehurst, published a pamphlet warning his parishioners and the public at large of the activities of certain seditious societies whose purpose was that of disseminating Jacobin principles; ideas already responsible for plunging France into chaos. His enquiries, he announced, had confirmed his worst suspicions:
The parties who so kindly, and out of pretended benevolence undertake to instruct my people for me, are members of a society, calling itself the Union Society of Greenwich: the same, as I am informed, which under the name of an Itinerant Society, had been driven from a public-house in that neighbourhood some little time since.Wollaston’s message, an ecclesiastical variant of the more general concern to engage in active defence of the established order, received its definitive form the following year at the hands of Bishop Samuel Horsley. In an important passage in his second visitation charge to the clergy of Rochester diocese the bishop referred to the emergence of an ecclesiastical subculture consisting of religious conventicles, Sunday schools and itinerant preachers. In Horsley’s eyes these ecclesiastical excrescences were merely the outward manifestations of a more sinister and worrying development, the appearance of associations designed to defray the costs of the current spate of unauthorized ‘religious’ activity.