G. R. Evans - A Short History of Medieval Christianity

I.B.TAURIS SHORT HISTORIES

I.B.Tauris Short Histories is an authoritative and elegantly written new series which puts a fresh perspective on the way history is taught and understood in the twenty-first century. Designed to have strong appeal to university students and their teachers, as well as to general readers and history enthusiasts, I.B.Tauris Short Histories comprises a novel attempt to bring informed interpretation, as well as factual reportage, to historical debate. Addressing key subjects and topics in the fields of history, the history of ideas, religion, classical studies, politics, philosophy and Middle East studies, the series seeks intentionally to move beyond the bland, neutral introduction that so often serves as the primary undergraduate teaching tool. While always providing students and generalists with the core facts that they need to get to grips with the essentials of any particular subject, I.B.Tauris Short Histories goes further. It offers new insights into how a topic has been understood in the past, and what different social and cultural factors might have been at work. It brings original perspectives to bear on the manner of its current interpretation. It raises questions and in its extensive bibliographies points to further study, even as it suggests answers. Addressing a variety of subjects in a greater degree of depth than is often found in comparable series, yet at the same time in concise and compact handbook form, I.B.Tauris Short Histories aims to be introductions with an edge. In combining questioning and searching analysis with informed history writing, it brings history up-to-date for an increasingly complex and globalized digital age.

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While the history of medieval Christianity has been frequently told, this book reorients the traditional narrative in creative ways by making space for all the Abrahamic religions. Offering a global dimension on the one hand, it presents on the other hand an array of materials focused on the British Isles, resulting in a history that is as informative and wide ranging as it is theologically astute. From early medieval wandering monks to late-medieval contentious scholastic disputations, the diverse subjects one might wish for are found here in a compelling account peppered with Evans customary wit and stylistic flourishes.

Willemien Otten, Professor of Theology and the History of Christianity, University of Chicago

This is an excellent introduction, written with pace and a well-pitched sense of the vast scope of the subject. The reader is briskly conducted from the birth of the Christian faith and its first institutional forms to the establishment of belief and practice under the Roman Empire, to the churches of the Greek East and Latin West in the Early Middle Ages, to the High Middle Ages and finally to the beginnings of the Reformation. Within an epic landscape we are introduced to medieval Christians of all types: monks, nuns, priests, lay men and women, heretics, scholars, popes, kings and peasants. We make the acquaintance, too, of the neighbours of medieval Christendom: the Jewish and Islamic communities, and discover the range of relations that existed between them from the violence of persecution and holy war to peaceful co-existence. Individual stories give pleasing depth and contour to a study which fully animates the lives of real people as well as providing an engaging survey of a broader, changing culture. The book is very well balanced and structured, its twin themes of dialogue and journey combining to excellent effect and giving the reader the impression of having engaged properly with both. In brief, A Short History of Medieval Christianity should be essential reading for all relevant undergraduate courses in the humanities and likewise ought to sell very well to the general public. Written with verve and precision, the book fully conveys the immensity of the topic as well as the sense that it can now be fully grasped and summarised.

Giles Gasper, Reader in High Medieval History, Durham University

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