Download or read book A Most Holy War written by Mark Gregory Pegg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-28 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January of 1208, a papal legate was murdered on the banks of the Rhone in southern France. A furious Pope Innocent III accused heretics of the crime and called upon all Christians to exterminate heresy between the Garonne and Rhone rivers--a vast region now known as Languedoc--in a great crusade. This most holy war, the first in which Christians were promised salvation for killing other Christians, lasted twenty bloody years--it was a long savage battle for the soul of Christendom. In A Most Holy War, historian Mark Pegg has produced a swift-moving, gripping narrative of this horrific crusade, drawing in part on thousands of testimonies collected by inquisitors in the years 1235 to 1245. These accounts of ordinary men and women, remembering what it was like to live through such brutal times, bring the story vividly to life. Pegg argues that generations of historians (and novelists) have misunderstood the crusade; they assumed it was a war against the Cathars, the most famous heretics of the Middle Ages. The Cathars, Pegg reveals, never existed. He further shows how a millennial fervor about "cleansing" the world of heresy, coupled with a fear that Christendom was being eaten away from within by heretics who looked no different than other Christians, made the battles, sieges, and massacres of the crusade almost apocalyptic in their cruel intensity. In responding to this fear with a holy genocidal war, Innocent III fundamentally changed how Western civilization dealt with individuals accused of corrupting society. This fundamental change, Pegg argues, led directly to the creation of the inquisition, the rise of an anti-Semitism dedicated to the violent elimination of Jews, and even the holy violence of the Reconquista in Spain and in the New World in the fifteenth century. All derive their divinely sanctioned slaughter from the Albigensian Crusade. Haunting and immersive, A Most Holy War opens an important new perspective on a truly pivotal moment in world history, a first and distant foreshadowing of the genocide and holy violence in the modern world.
Download or read book Battle for Christendom written by Frank Welsh and published by . This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "At the dawn of the fifteenth century, Islam invaded Europe from the East and it seemed that Christendom itself was under threat. In an attempt to save Christian world the Emperor Sigismund called the many nations of Europe together for a conference at Constance, beside the Rhine. The Conference attracted the greatest minds in the western world, as well as innumerable princes, lawyers and prostitutes. And amid the confusion hoped to put Europe's house in order." "In The Battle for Christendom, brilliant historian Frank Welsh delves into this important moment in history and shows that it is in fact one of the most central moments in European history. Schism had ravaged the Catholic Church and three Popes claimed the seat of St Peters - which, in Holmesian fashion, Welsh cals a "Three-Pope Problem". There were also dangerous stirrings of reform. Over the next months, debate raged while Sigismund attempted to find a solution. The event would be one of the major turning points in European history - the last event of the medieval world, heralding the dawn of the renaissance and the rise of humanism. Yet it would also hold a darker truth and with the burning of the Czech divine, Jan Hus, saw first moments of the Reformation. The story rises to a conclusion on the battlements of Constantinople in 1453 where, despite all of Sigismund's attempts to repel the Ottomans, the East rose up once more." "The Council of Constance was a high point for the movement that promoted the authority of councils over the authority of the pope, and with good reason - it was a moment in which a group of well-meaning people reshaped the future of their continent. In Welsh's lively retelling, The Battle for Christendom is an exciting and readable story that holds lessons for our own times of international turmoil."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book A Most Holy War written by Mark Gregory Pegg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-30 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian Pegg has produced a swift-moving, gripping narrative of a horrific crusade, drawing in part on thousands of testimonies collected by inquisitors in the years 1235 to 1245. These accounts of ordinary men and women bring the story vividly to life.
Download or read book The Battle for Christendom written by Frank Welsh and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fifteenth century Council of Constance ends the Catholic Church’s papal schism and sets Europe on its path to the Renaissance in this in-depth history. At the dawn of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Empire posed an existential threat to Christian Europe. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church was in chaos, with three Popes claiming the Chair of Saint Peter and dangerous stirrings of reform. In an attempt to save the Christian world, Emperor Sigismund of the Holy Roman Empire called the nations of Europe together for a conference at Constance, beside the Rhine. In The Battle for Christendom, historian Frank Welsh demonstrates that the 1414 Council of Constance was one of the most pivotal events in European history. The last event of the medieval world, the months of fierce debate and political maneuvering heralded the dawn of the Renaissance and the rise of humanism. Yet it would also bring about darker events, as the first moments of the Protestant Reformation began with the burning of the Czech divine, Jan Hus. The story rises to a climax on the battlements of Constantinople in 1453 where, despite all of Sigismund’s attempts to repel the Ottomans, the East rose up once more. In Welsh’s lively retelling, The Battle for Christendom is an enthralling history that holds lessons for our own times of international turmoil.
Download or read book The War on Heresy written by R. I. Moore and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the most portentous events in medieval history—the Cathar crusade, the persecution and mass burnings of heretics, the papal inquisition—fall between 1000 and 1250, when the Catholic Church confronted the threat of heresy with force. Moore’s narrative focuses on the motives and anxieties of elites who waged war on heresy for political gain.
Download or read book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom written by Andrew Dickson White and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Great and Holy War written by Philip Jenkins and published by Lion Books. This book was released on 2014-06-20 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War, and the lasting impact it had on Christianity and world religions more extensively in the century that followed. The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. A steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was served to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Philip Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels, apparitions, and the supernatural, was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism. Connecting remarkable incidents and characters - from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide - Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis. We cannot understand our present religious, political, and cultural climate without understanding the dramatic changes initiated by the First World War. The war created the world's religious map as we know it today.
Download or read book The Battle for God written by Karen Armstrong and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2001 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most potent forces bedevilling the modern world is religious fundamentalism. Armstrong explains how and why fundamentalists' understanding of religion and society differs so starkly from that of their contemporaries.
Download or read book American Fascists written by Chris Hedges and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the celebrated author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" comes a startling expos of the political ambitions of the Christian Right--a clarion call for everyone who cares about freedom.
Download or read book Millennium written by Tom Holland and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-04-21 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the civilisations existing in the year 1000, that of Western Europe seemed the unlikeliest candidate for future greatness. Compared to the glittering empires of Byzantium or Islam, the splintered kingdoms on the edge of the Atlantic appeared impoverished, fearful and backward. But the anarchy of these years proved to be, not the portents of the end of the world, as many Christians had dreaded, but rather the birthpangs of a radically new order. MILLENNIUM is a stunning panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000. This was the age of Canute, William the Conqueror and Pope Gregory VII, of Vikings, monks and serfs, of the earliest castles and the invention of knighthood, and of the primal conflict between church and state. The story of how the distinctive culture of Europe - restless, creative and dynamic - was forged from out of the convulsions of these extraordinary times is as fascinating and as momentous as any in history.
Download or read book Empires of the Sea written by Roger Crowley and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world. In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date–a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, “The King of Evil,” the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria. This struggle’s brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepanto–one of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away “because of the countless corpses floating in the sea.” Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today. Roger Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its best–a story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.
Download or read book Holy War in the Bible written by Heath A. Thomas and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-04-05 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first of its kind, this collection offers a constructive response to the question of holy war and Christian morality from an interdisciplinary perspective. By combining biblical, ethical, philosophical and theological insights, the contributors offer a composite image of divine redemption that promises to take the discussion to another level.
Download or read book Crusade and Christendom written by Jessalynn Bird and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1213, Pope Innocent III issued his letter Vineam Domini, thundering against the enemies of Christendom—the "beasts of many kinds that are attempting to destroy the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth"—and announcing a General Council of the Latin Church as redress. The Fourth Lateran Council, which convened in 1215, was unprecedented in its scope and impact, and it called for the Fifth Crusade as what its participants hoped would be the final defense of Christendom. For the first time, a collection of extensively annotated and translated documents illustrates the transformation of the crusade movement. Crusade and Christendom explores the way in which the crusade was used to define and extend the intellectual, religious, and political boundaries of Latin Christendom. It also illustrates how the very concept of the crusade was shaped by the urge to define and reform communities of practice and belief within Latin Christendom and by Latin Christendom's relationship with other communities, including dissenting political powers and heretical groups, the Moors in Spain, the Mongols, and eastern Christians. The relationship of the crusade to reform and missionary movements is also explored, as is its impact on individual lives and devotion. The selection of documents and bibliography incorporates and brings to life recent developments in crusade scholarship concerning military logistics and travel in the medieval period, popular and elite participation, the role of women, liturgy and preaching, and the impact of the crusade on western society and its relationship with other cultures and religions. Intended for the undergraduate yet also invaluable for teachers and scholars, this book illustrates how the crusades became crucial for defining and promoting the very concept and boundaries of Latin Christendom. It provides translations of and commentaries on key original sources and up-to-date bibliographic materials.
Download or read book Holy Fire written by Victoria Clark and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-04-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every Easter the 'miracle' of the Holy Fire is re-enacted in front of hundreds of the faithful in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. 'Holy Fire' presents the battle waged by Christian churchmen for their saviour's empty tomb. Victoria Clark deftly weaves a fascinating account that includes the aggressive campaigns of medieval Crusaders, the empire-building of the nineteenth-century European powers, Britain's decision to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine in 1917, and today's zealous, though unlikely, champions of Israel's cause, the Christian Zionists. She explores the contribution that the Christian world has made to the unfolding tragedy of the Holy Land - at a time when it has never been more urgent for the West to see itself as others see it.
Download or read book Christ Vs Culture written by Feyi Boroffice and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christ versus Culture examines the liberal and conservative responses to the culture wars and presents a biblical basis for Christians to engage with the world.
Download or read book Infidels written by Andrew Wheatcroft and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2005-05-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the first panoptic history of the long struggle between the Christian West and Islam. In this dazzlingly written, acutely nuanced account, Andrew Wheatcroft tracks a deep fault line of animosity between civilizations. He begins with a stunning account of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, then turns to the main zones of conflict: Spain, from which the descendants of the Moors were eventually expelled; the Middle East, where Crusaders and Muslims clashed for years; and the Balkans, where distant memories spurred atrocities even into the twentieth century. Throughout, Wheatcroft delves beneath stereotypes, looking incisively at how images, ideas, language, and technology (from the printing press to the Internet), as well as politics, religion, and conquest, have allowed each side to demonize the other, revive old grievances, and fuel across centuries a seemingly unquenchable enmity. Finally, Wheatcroft tells how this fraught history led to our present maelstrom. We cannot, he argues, come to terms with today’s perplexing animosities without confronting this dark past.
Download or read book Before Church and State A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St Louis IX written by Andrew Willard Jones and published by Emmaus Academic. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
