Christianity is a hugely diverse and quarrelsome family of faiths, but most Christians have nevertheless set great store by orthodoxy - literally, 'right opinion' - even if they cannot agree what that orthodoxy should be. The notion that there is a 'catholic', or universal, Christian faith - that which, according to the famous fifth-century formula, has been believed everywhere, at all times and by all people - is itself an act of faith: to reconcile it with the historical fact of persiste...

As an authority on the religion of medieval and early modern England, Professor Eamon Duffy is preeminent.In his revisionist masterpiece The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy opened up new areas of research and entirely fresh perspectives on the origin and progress of the English Reformation. Duffy's focus has always been on the practices and institutions through which ordinary people lived and experienced their religion, but which the Protestant reformers ab...

In these vivid and approachable essays Eamon Duffy engages with some of the central aspects of Western religion in the thousand years between the decline of pagan Rome and the rise of the Protestant Reformation.In the process he opens windows on the vibrant and multifaceted beliefs and practices by which medieval people made sense of their world: the fear of death and the impact of devastating pandemic, holy war against Islam and the invention of the blood libel ag...

A collection of prayers and devotions centring on the mass, collected by renowned academic Professor Eamon Duffy.This intelligent and richly resourced collection brings together beautiful and memorable prayers and hymns from a wide range of sources. This is not a mere anthology of prayers, but rather a comprehensive guide to praying the big things of life and faith, using words with resonance and eloquence to convey a Catholic Christianity that stretches across Eas...

In this wide-ranging book, Professor Eamon Duffy explores the broad sweep of the English Reformation, and the ways in which that Reformation has been written about. Tracing the fraught history of religious change in Tudor England, and the retellings of that history to shape a protestant national identity, once again he emphasizes the importance of the study of late medieval religion and material culture for our understanding of this most formative and fascinating of eras.Getting to ...

Published to mark the 500th anniversary of the events of 1517, Reformation Divided explores the impact in England of the cataclysmic transformations of European Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.The religious revolution initiated by Martin Luther is usually referred to as 'The Reformation', a tendentious description implying that the shattering of the medieval religious foundations of Europe was a single process, in which a defective ...

Bloomsbury presents Royal Books and Holy Bones written and read by Eamon Duffy.In these vivid and approachable essays Eamon Duffy engages with some of the central aspects of Western religion in the thousand years between the decline of pagan Rome and the rise of the Protestant Reformation.In the process he opens windows on the vibrant and multifaceted beliefs and practices by which medieval people made sense of their world: the fear of death and the impact of devastating pa...

Bloomsbury presents Reformation Divided written and read by Eamon Duffy.Published to mark the 500th anniversary of the events of 1517, Reformation Divided explores the impact in England of the cataclysmic transformations of European Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.The religious revolution initiated by Martin Luther is usually referred to as ‘The Reformation’, a tendentious description implying that the shattering of the medieval religious foundations...

This book comes complete with a Touch-or-Click Table of Contents, divided by each section. Stations of the Cross refers to a series of artistic representations, very often sculptural, depicting Christ Carrying the Cross to his crucifixion in the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus, and to devotions commemorating the Passion that use the series, often moving physically around a set of stations. The vast majority of Roman Catholic churches now contain such a series, typically placed at intervals ...

The King James Bible was a landmark in the history of the English language, and an inspiration to poets, dramatists, artists and politicians. Without the King James Bible there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim's Progress, no Handel's Messiah. Yet more than a literary, even more than a religious influence, it was seen as a social, economic and political text. Those seeking to overthrow the English monarchy and those wanting to retain it, both sought support from the same Bible.

This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people’s experience of religion, showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but a strong and vigorous tradition. For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period.“A mighty and momentous book: a book to be read and re-read, pondered and revered; a subtle, profound book written with passion and eloquence, and w...

The Suppressed Gospels and Epistles of the Original New Testament of Jesus Christ is a nineteenth-century compilation of early Christian apocrypha, presenting texts such as the Gospel of the Infancy, the Gospel of Nicodemus, apostolic letters, and other writings excluded from the canonical New Testament. Its style is heterogeneous: devotional, legendary, didactic, and at times dramatic, reflecting the imaginative piety and theological curiosity of early Christian communities. Read in liter...