ARGOMENTI
General Introduction. Christianity adjusting to the feudal world (AD 692-1085). Towards a Christian Europe (AD 692-840)? Time of anarchy (692-750). Carolinian renaissance (751-850). Western Churches outside Carolinian empire. The “Dark Ages” or a crisis for the birth of a new age (AD 840-1085)? Collapse of the Carolinian unity and order (840-930). Towards a new order of western Christendom (930-1046). Reform of Papacy and Church in reform (1046-1085). The parting of the first and second Churches. General features. Iconoclast controversies. The parting of the ways. The Church leader of the Society (AD 1085-1294). Western Society from 11th to 13th c. The Church in reform (1085-1153): struggles for freedom. Aspiration to a ‘vita evangelica’, the new orders. Control of violence: Peace and Holy War. A Christian Europe (1153-1294)? Papacy and the theocratic temptation. Life of Christendom in mid-12th-13th c. The Byzantine Church and the period of the crusades. A time of unprecedented challenge (AD 1294-1453). General features of Western Society in the 14th and 15th c: a world in crisis. Papacy to the test. Boniface VIII and the rise of lay spirit. Stay in Avignon. Scandal of the western Great Schism. Reform and unity: Pope or Council? Christianity in labour. Christian life. New Ecclesiologies. New ways to perfection. The fall of Byzantium. Last struggle and agony of Byzantium. Orthodoxy in the last century of Byzantium. General conclusion. Evaluation.
TESTI
Textbook: Handouts given by the lecturer.
BARRACLOUGH G., The Medieval Papacy, London, 1968. COMBY J., How to read Church History. Vol. 1. From the beginning to the fifteenth century, London, 1988. DAVIS L.D., The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, Collegeville MN, 1990. DEANESLY M., A History of the Medieval Church. 590-1500, London-New York, 1985. LAWRENCE C.H., Medieval Monasticism. Forms of religious life in the Western Europe in the Middle Ages, St Francisco, 2001. JEDIN H.(ed.), Church History, vol.3-4, Burns & Oates, London, 1980… LECLERQ J., The love of leaving and the desire for God: A study of Monastic culture, New York, 1982. LOGAN F. D., A History of the Church in the Middle Ages, Routledge, London – New York, 2002. LYNCH J.J., The Medieval Church: A brief history, London-New York, 1992. MEYENDORFF J & PAPADAKIS A., The Christian East and the Rise of Papacy; The Church 1071-1453, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, New York, 1994. RILEY-SMITH J. (ed.), The Oxford illustrated history of the Crusaders, Oxford, 1995. SHANNON A.C., The Medieval Inquisition, Collegeville MN, 1991. SOUTHERN R.W., Western society and the Church in the Middle- Ages, London (Penguin History of the Church), 1973. WARE Th., The Orthodox Church, Penguin books, London,1963.