"Conceptually well organized, stylistically clear, intellectually thoughtful, and pedagogically useful."

- Thomas Head, Speculum

"For its humane and learned approach to its enormous canvas, as well as for the cogency with which it penetrates at speed to the essentials of a vanished historical epoch, this History of the Church in the Middle Ages deserves a very wide audience indeed."

- Barrie Dobson, English Historical Review

"To have written a scholarly and very readable history of the Western Church over a millennium is a remarkable tour de force, for which Donald Logan is to be warmly congratulated."

- C.H Lawrence, The Tablet

"A feat of historical synthesis, most confident in its telling of the coming of Christianity. Books like Logan's are needed more than ever before."

- Miri Rubin, TLS

In this fascinating survey, F. Donald Logan introduces the reader to the Christian church, from the conversion of the Celtic and Germanic peoples to the discovery of the New World. He reveals how the church unified the people of Western Europe as they worshipped with the same ceremonies and used Latin as the language of civilized communication. From remote, rural parish to magnificent urban cathedral, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages explores the role of the church as a central element in determining a thousand years of history.

This new edition brings the book right up to date with recent scholarship, and includes an expanded introduction exploring the interaction of other faiths - particularly Judaism and Islam - with the Christian church.

Completely updated to include important primary research, archaeological findings and debates from the last decade, this third edition of F. Donald Logan's successful book examines the Vikings and their critical role in history.

The author uses archaeological, literary and historical evidence to analyze the Vikings' overseas expeditions and their transformation from raiders to settlers. Focusing on the period from 800-1050, it studies the Vikings across the world, from Denmark and Sweden right across to the British Isles, the North Atlantic and the New World.

This edition includes:

• 
  
• a new epilogue explaining the aims of the book
• 
  
• updated further reading sections
• 
  
• maps and photographs.

By taking this new archaeological and primary research into account, the author provides a vital text for history students and researchers of this fascinating people.

Essays on English medieval ecclesiastical history, focusing particularly on administration. Dorothy Owen has made a major contribution over half a century to our knowledge of the history of the English church, especially but not exclusively in the middle ages. While her published work has focused largely on eastern England, she has never lost sight of the wider universal context, and is one of the leading scholars of medieval canon law. This volume of essays on English medieval ecclesiastical history is presented to her as a tribute from friends,colleagues and former pupils; their contents range from the pre-Conquest period to the eve of the Reformation, but are all concerned with the practicalities of ecclesiastical administration and jurisdiction. Contributors: JOAN VARLEY, DAVID CHAMBERS, C.N.L. BROOKE, MARK BAILEY, MARTIN BRETT, M.J. FRANKLIN, CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL, ROSALIND HILL, RALPH HOULBROOKE, BRIAN KEMP, F. DONALD LOGAN, A.K. McHARDY, SANDRA RABAN, DAVID M. SMITH, R.L. STOREY, R.N. SWANSON, PAMELA TAYLOR, P.N.R. ZUTSHI, ARTHUR OWEN

Completely updated to include important primary research, archaeological findings and debates from the last decade, this third edition of F. Donald Logan's successful book examines the Vikings and their critical role in history. The author uses archaeological, literary and historical evidence to analyze the Vikings' overseas expeditions and their transformation from raiders to settlers. Focusing on the period from 800-1050, it studies the Vikings across the world, from Denmark and Sweden right across to the British Isles, the North Atlantic and the New World. This edition includes: a new epilogue explaining the aims of the book updated further reading sections maps and photographs. By taking this new archaeological and primary research into account, the author provides a vital text for history students and researchers of this fascinating people.

Runaway religious were monks, canons and friars who had taken vows of religion and who, with benefit of neither permission nor dispensation and for myriad reasons, fled their monasteries and returned to a life in the world, usually replacing the religious habit with lay clothes. Not only the normal tugs of the world drew them away: other less obvious yet equally human motives, such as boredom, led to a return to the world. The church pursued them with her severest penalty, excommunication, in the express hope that penalties would lead to the return of the straying sheep. This book is the first to tell their story.

First full-length study and edition of the acts of the Court of Arches, the most important medieval English ecclesiastical court. The appellate court of the archbishop of Canterbury as metropolitan of the province of Canterbury [covering all of England south of the Humber and all of Wales] was the most important ecclesiastical court in medieval England; it sat in the church of St Mary le Bow in London, from whose Latin name [de arcubus] it took its popular name, the Court of Arches. This volume offers the first full-length study of the Court. The introduction traces its history from its first appearance in the records of the mid- thirteenth century to 1533, when the Statute in Restraint of Appeals altered its constitution, and describes how cases proceeded in the court from initial appeal to final disposition. It is followed by an edition of the essential texts governing the court - its statutes and its customs - as well as editions of treatises about the court's procedure, which were written by practitioners in the Arches. A list of the court's personnel, including proctors and advocates, and a discussion of the court's calendar complete the volume.

The 'runaway religious' were monks, canons and friars who had taken vows of religion and who, with benefit of neither permission nor dispensation, fled their monasteries and returned to a life in the world, usually replacing the religious habit with lay clothes. No legal exit for the discontented was permitted - religious vows were like marriage vows in this respect - until the financial crisis caused by the Great Schism created a market in dispensations for priests in religious orders to leave, take benefices, and live as secular priests. The church therefore pursued runaways with her severest penalty, excommunication, in the express hope that penalties would lead to the return of the straying sheep. Once back, whether by free choice or by force, the runaway was received not with a feast for a prodigal but, in a rite of stark severity, with the imposition of penalties deemed suitable for a sinner.

"Conceptually well organized, stylistically clear, intellectually thoughtful, and pedagogically useful."

- Thomas Head, Speculum

"For its humane and learned approach to its enormous canvas, as well as for the cogency with which it penetrates at speed to the essentials of a vanished historical epoch, this History of the Church in the Middle Ages deserves a very wide audience indeed."

- Barrie Dobson, English Historical Review

"To have written a scholarly and very readable history of the Western Church over a millennium is a remarkable tour de force, for which Donald Logan is to be warmly congratulated."

- C.H Lawrence, The Tablet

"A feat of historical synthesis, most confident in its telling of the coming of Christianity. Books like Logan's are needed more than ever before."

- Miri Rubin, TLS

In this fascinating survey, F. Donald Logan introduces the reader to the Christian church, from the conversion of the Celtic and Germanic peoples to the discovery of the New World. He reveals how the church unified the people of Western Europe as they worshipped with the same ceremonies and used Latin as the language of civilized communication. From remote, rural parish to magnificent urban cathedral, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages explores the role of the church as a central element in determining a thousand years of history.

This new edition brings the book right up to date with recent scholarship, and includes an expanded introduction exploring the interaction of other faiths - particularly Judaism and Islam - with the Christian church.

Essays provide evidence for the vigour and involvement of religious orders in the years immediately prior to the reformation. It continues to be assumed in some quarters that England's monasteries and mendicant convents fell into a headlong decline - pursuing high living and low morals - long before Henry VIII set out to destroy them at the Dissolution.The essays in this book add to the growing body of scholarly enquiry which challenges this view. Drawing on some of the most recent research by British and American scholars, they offer a wide-ranging reassessment of the religiousorders on the eve of the Reformation. They consider not only the condition of their communities and the character of life within them, but also their wider contribution - spiritual, intellectual and economic - to English societyat large. What emerges is the impression that the years leading up to the Dissolution were neither as dark nor as difficult for the regular religious as many earlier histories have led us to believe. It was a period of institutional and religious reform, and, for the Benedictines at least, a period of marked intellectual revival. Many religious houses also continued to enjoy close relations with the lay communities living beyond their precinct walls. Whiletheir role in the devotions of many ordinary lay folk may have diminished, they still had a significant part to play in the local economy, in education and in a wide range of social and cultural activities. Contributors:JEREMY CATTO, JAMES G. CLARK, GLYN COPPACK, CLAIRE CROSS, PETER CUNICH, VINCENT GILLESPIE, JOAN GREATEX, BARBARA HARVEY, F. DONALD LOGAN, MARILYN OLIVA, MICHAEL ROBSON, R.N. SWANSON, BENJAMIN THOMPSON.